The initial flag of East Germany adopted in 1948 was identical to that of West Germany. In 1959, the East German government issued a new version of the flag bearing the national emblem, serving to distinguish East from West.^a Dissolved by the Volkskammer on 8 December 1958.^b Population statistics according to Statistisches Bundesamt.[1]^c Although .dd was reserved as corresponding ISO code for East Germany, it was not entered to the root before the country was reunited with the west.[2]

The German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany was a satellite state of the Soviet Union.[5] Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, and the GDR began to function as a state on 7 October 1949. Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party (SED), though other parties nominally participated in its alliance organisation, the National Front of Democratic Germany.[6] The SED made the teaching of Marxism-Leninism and the Russian language compulsory in schools.[7]

The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned.[8] Prices of housing, basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand; and were heavily subsidised. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the USSR, it became the most successful economy in the Eastern Bloc. Emigration to the West was a significant problem – as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, it further weakened the state economically. The government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by border guards or booby traps, such as landmines.[9]

In 1989, numerous social, economic and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the establishment of a government committed to liberalization. The following year open elections were held,[10] and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR dissolved itself and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990, becoming a fully sovereign state again. Several of the GDR's leaders, notably its last communist leader Egon Krenz, were prosecuted in reunified Germany for crimes committed during the Cold War.

Geographically, the German Democratic Republic bordered the Baltic Sea to the north; the Polish People's Republic to the east; Czechoslovakia to the southeast and West Germany to the southwest and west. Internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the state's de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989.

The official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), usually abbreviated to DDR. Both terms were used in East Germany, with increasing usage of the abbreviated form, especially since East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners to be foreigners following the promulgation of its second constitution in 1968. West Germans, the western media and statesmen initially avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone (Eastern Zone),[11]Sowjetische Besatzungszone (Soviet Occupation Zone; often abbreviated to SBZ), and sogenannte DDR[12] (or "so-called GDR").[13]

The centre of political power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. (The seat of command of the Soviet forces in East Germany was referred to as Karlshorst.[11]) Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also increasingly used colloquially by West Germans and West German media.[14]

The term Westdeutschland (West Germany), when used by West Germans was almost always a reference to the geographic region of Western Germany and not to the area within the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, this use was not always consistent; for example, West Berliners frequently used the term Westdeutschland to denote the Federal Republic.[15] Before World War II, Ostdeutschland (eastern Germany) was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe (East Elbia), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt.[16][17][18][19][20]

Explaining the internal impact of the GDR government from the perspective of German history in the long term, historian Gerhard A. Ritter (2002) has argued that the East German state was defined by two dominant forces – Soviet communism on the one hand, and German traditions filtered through the interwar experiences of German communists on the other. It was constrained by the powerful example of the increasingly prosperous West, to which East Germans compared their state. The changes made by the communists were most apparent in ending capitalism and transforming industry and agriculture, and in the thrust of the educational system and the media. On the other hand, there was relatively little change made in the historically independent domains of the sciences, the engineering professions, the Protestant churches, and in many bourgeois lifestyles. Social policy, says Ritter, became a critical legitimization tool in the last decades and mixed socialist and traditional elements about equally.[21]

At the Yalta Conference during World War II, the Allies (the U.S., the UK and the Soviet Union) agreed on dividing a defeated Nazi Germany into occupation zones,[22] and on dividing Berlin, the German capital, among the Allied powers as well. Initially this meant the construction of three zones of occupation, i.e., American, British, and Soviet. Later, a French zone was carved out of the American and British zones.

The ruling communist party, known as the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), was formed in April 1946 from the merger between the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) by mandate of Joseph Stalin. The two former parties were notorious rivals when they were active before the Nazis consolidated all power and criminalised their agitation. The unification of the two parties was symbolic[citation needed] of the new friendship of German socialists in defeating their common enemy; however, the communists, who held a majority, had virtually total control over policy.[23] The SED was the ruling party for the entire duration of the East German state. It had close ties with the USSR, which maintained military forces in East Germany until its dissolution in 1991 (the Russian Federation continued to maintain forces in what had been East Germany until 1994), with the stated purpose of countering NATO bases in West Germany. Historians debate whether the decision to form a separate country was initiated by the USSR or by the SED.[24]

As West Germany was reorganised and gained independence from its occupiers, the German Democratic Republic was established in East Germany in 1949. The creation of the two states solidified the 1945 division of Germany.[25] On 10 March 1952, (in what would become known as the "Stalin Note") Stalin put forth a proposal to reunify Germany with a policy of neutrality, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for "the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction, and assembly" and free activity of democratic parties and organizations.[26] This was turned down; reunification was not a priority for the leadership of West Germany, and the NATO powers declined the proposal, asserting that Germany should be able to join NATO and that such a negotiation with the Soviet Union would be seen as a capitulation. There have been several debates about whether a real chance for reunification had been missed in 1952.

In 1949 the Soviets turned control of East Germany over to the Socialist Unity Party, headed by Wilhelm Pieck (1876–1960), who became president of the GDR and held the office until his death, while most executive authority was assumed by SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht. Socialist leader Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964) became prime minister until his death.[27]

The government of East Germany denounced West German failures in accomplishing denazification and renounced ties to the Nazi past, imprisoning many former Nazis and preventing them from holding government positions. The SED set a primary goal of ridding East Germany of all traces of the fascist regime. The SED party platform claimed to support democratic elections and the protection of individual liberties in building up socialism.[28]

In the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the Allies established their joint military occupation and administration of Germany via the Allied Control Council (ACC), a four-power (US, UK, USSR, France) military government effective until the restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ – Sowjetische Besatzungszone) comprised the five states (Länder) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. Disagreements over the policies to be followed in the occupied zones quickly led to a breakdown in cooperation between the four powers, and the Soviets administered their zone without regard to the policies implemented in the other zones. The Soviets withdrew from the ACC in 1948; subsequently as the other three zones were increasingly unified and granted self-government, the Soviet administration instituted a separate socialist government in its zone.

East Germany considered East Berlin to be its capital, and the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc diplomatically recognized East Berlin as the capital. However, the Western Allies disputed this recognition, considering the entire city of Berlin to be occupied territory governed by the Allied Control Council. According to Margarete Feinstein, East Berlin's status as the capital was largely unrecognized by the West and most Third World countries.[29] In practice, the ACC’s authority was rendered moot by the Cold War, and East Berlin's status as occupied territory largely became a legal fiction, and the former Soviet sector became fully integrated into the GDR.

The deepening Cold War conflict between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union over the unresolved status of West Berlin led to the Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949). The Soviet army initiated the blockade by halting all Allied rail, road, and water traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies countered the Soviets with the Berlin Airlift (1948–49) of food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin.[30]

In 1948, the German Economic Commission (Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission—DWK) under its chairman Heinrich Rau assumed administrative authority in the Soviet occupation zone, thus becoming the predecessor of an East German government.[31][32]

On 7 October 1949, the SED established the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic – GDR), based on a socialist political constitution establishing its control of the anti-fascistNational Front of the German Democratic Republic (NF, Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik), an omnibus alliance of every party and mass organisation in East Germany. The NF was established to stand for election to the Volkskammer (People's Chamber), the East German parliament. The first and only President of the German Democratic Republic was Wilhelm Pieck. However, after 1950, political power in East Germany was held by the First Secretary of the SED, Walter Ulbricht.[33]

The German war reparations owed to the USSR impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. In the 1945–46 period, the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plant and by the early 1950s had extracted some US$10 billion in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.[36] The poverty of East Germany induced by reparations provoked the Republikflucht ("desertion from the republic") to West Germany, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities induced a brain drain. In response, the GDR closed the Inner German Border, and on the night of 12 August 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall.[37]

In 1971, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had Ulbricht removed; Erich Honecker replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reforms, the Honecker government reversed them. The new government introduced a new East German Constitution which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants".[38]

Initially, East Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, a claim supported by most of the Communist bloc. It claimed that West Germany was an illegally constituted NATO puppet state. However, from the 1960s onward, East Germany began recognizing itself as a separate country from West Germany, and shared the legacy of the united German state of 1871–1945. This was formalized in 1974, when the reunification clause was removed from the revised East German constitution. West Germany, in contrast, maintained that it was the only legitimate government of Germany. From 1949 to the early 1970s, West Germany maintained that East Germany was an illegally constituted state. It argued that the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, and frequently referred to it as the "Soviet occupation zone". This position was shared by West Germany's allies as well until 1973. East Germany was recognized primarily by Communist countries and the Arab bloc, along with some "scattered sympathizers".[39] According to the Hallstein Doctrine (1955), West Germany also did not establish (formal) diplomatic ties with any country – except the USSR – that recognized East German sovereignty.

But in the early 1970s, the Ostpolitik ("Eastern Policy") of "Change Through Rapprochement" of the pragmatic government of FRG Chancellor Willy Brandt, established normal diplomatic relations with the East Bloc states. This policy saw the Treaty of Moscow (August 1970), the Treaty of Warsaw (December 1970), the Four Power Agreement on Berlin (September 1971), the Transit Agreement (May 1972), and the Basic Treaty (December 1972), which relinquished any claims to an exclusive mandate over Germany as a whole and established normal relations between the Germanys. Both countries were admitted into the United Nations on 18 September 1973. This also increased the number of countries recognizing East Germany to 55, including the US, UK and France, though these three still refused to recognize East Berlin as the capital, and insisted on a specific provision in the UN resolution accepting the two Germanys into the UN to that effect.[39] Following the Ostpolitik the West German view was that East Germany was a de facto government within a single German nation and a de jure state organisation of parts of Germany outside the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic continued to maintain that it could not within its own structures recognise the GDR de jure as a sovereign state under international law; but it fully acknowledged that, within the structures of international law, the GDR was an independent sovereign state. By distinction, West Germany then viewed itself as being within its own boundaries, not only the de facto and de jure government, but also the sole de jure legitimate representative of a dormant "Germany as whole".[40] The two Germanys relinquished any claim to represent the other internationally; which they acknowledged as necessarily implying a mutual recognition of each other as both capable of representing their own populations de jure in participating in international bodies and agreements, such as the United Nations and the Helsinki Final Act.

"... the German Democratic Republic is in the international-law sense a State and as such a subject of international law. This finding is independent of recognition in international law of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such recognition has not only never been formally pronounced by the Federal Republic of Germany but on the contrary repeatedly explicitly rejected. If the conduct of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the German Democratic Republic is assessed in the light of its détente policy, in particular the conclusion of the Treaty as de facto recognition, then it can only be understood as de facto recognition of a special kind. The special feature of this Treaty is that while it is a bilateral Treaty between two States, to which the rules of international law apply and which like any other international treaty possesses validity, it is between two States that are parts of a still existing, albeit incapable of action as not being reorganized, comprehensive State of the Whole of Germany with a single body politic."[42]

Travel between the GDR and Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary was visa-free since 1972.[43]

From the beginning, the newly formed GDR tried to establish its own separate identity.[44] Because of the imperial and military legacy of Prussia, the SED repudiated continuity between Prussia and the GDR. The SED destroyed a number of symbolic relics of the former Prussian aristocracy: the Junker manor houses were torn down, the Berliner Stadtschloß was razed, and the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great was removed from East Berlin. Instead the SED focused on the progressive heritage of German history, including Thomas Müntzer's role in the German Peasants' War and the role played by the heroes of the class struggle during Prussia's industrialization.

In 1989, following widespread public anger over the faking of results of local government elections, many citizens applied for exit visas or left the country contrary to GDR laws. In August 1989 Hungary removed its border restrictions and unsealed its border, and more than 13,000 people left East Germany by crossing the border via Czechoslovakia into Hungary and then on to Austria and West Germany.[46] Many others demonstrated against the ruling party, especially in the city of Leipzig. Kurt Masur, the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, led local negotiations with the government and held town meetings in the concert hall.[47] The demonstrations eventually led Erich Honecker to resign in October, and he was replaced by a slightly more moderate communist, Egon Krenz.[48]

On 9 November 1989, a few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened, resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing freely into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time in nearly 30 years. Krenz resigned a few days later, and the SED abandoned power shortly afterward. Although there were some limited attempts to create a permanent democratic East Germany, this did not come to pass.

East Germany held its last elections in March 1990. The winner was a coalition headed by the East German branch of West Germany's Christian Democratic Union, which advocated speedy reunification. Negotiations (2+4 Talks) were held involving the two German states and the former Allied Powers which led to agreement on the conditions for German unification. By a two-thirds vote in the Volkskammer on 23 August 1990, the GDR declared its accession to the Federal Republic. The five original East German states that had been abolished in the 1952 redistricting were recreated.[48] On 3 October 1990, the five states officially joined the Federal Republic of Germany, while East and West Berlin united as a third city-state (in the same manner as Bremen and Hamburg). On 1 July a currency union preceded the political union: the "Ostmark" was abolished, and the Western German "Deutsche Mark" became common currency.

Although the Volkskammer's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic had initiated the process of reunification; the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms, conditions and qualifications; some of which involved amendments to the West German Basic Law) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990; that is through a binding agreement between the former GDR and the Federal Republic now recognising each another as separate sovereign states in international law.[49] This treaty was then voted into effect prior to the agreed date for Unification by both the Volkskammer and the Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities; effecting on the one hand, the extinction of the GDR, and on the other, the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic.

The great economic and socio-political inequalities between the former Germanies required government subsidy for the full integration of East Germany to the Federal German Republic. Because of the resulting deindustrialisation in the former East Germany, the causes of the failure of this integration continue to be debated. Some western commentators claim that the depressed eastern economy is a natural aftereffect of a demonstrably inefficient socialist economy. But many East German critics contend that the shock-therapy style of privatization, the artificially high rate of exchange offered for the Ostmark, and the speed with which the entire process was implemented did not leave room for East German enterprises to adapt.[50]

There were four periods in East German political history.[51] These included: 1949–61, which saw the building of socialism; 1961–1970 after the Berlin Wall closed off escape was a period of stability and consolidation; 1971–85 was termed the Honecker Era, and saw closer ties with West Germany; and 1985–89 saw the decline and extinction of East Germany.

The Potsdam Agreement committed the Soviets to supporting a democratic form of government in Germany, though the Soviets' understanding of "democracy" was radically different from that of the West. As in other Soviet-bloc countries, non-communist political parties were allowed. Nevertheless, every political party in the GDR was forced to join the National Front of Democratic Germany, a broad coalition of parties and mass political organisations, including:

Ernst Thälmann Island was gifted to East Germany in 1972 by Cuba as an act of fraternity, although the resulting status of the island is now unclear.[52]

The member parties were almost completely subservient to the SED, and had to accept its "leading role" as a condition of their existence. However, the parties did have representation in the Volkskammer and received some posts in the government.

Important non-parliamentary mass organisations in East German society included the German Gymnastics and Sports Association (Deutscher Turn- und Sportbund or DTSB), and People's Solidarity (Volkssolidarität), an organisation for the elderly. Another society of note was the Society for German-Soviet Friendship.

After the fall of Communism, the SED was renamed the "Party of Democratic Socialism" (PDS) which continued for a decade after reunification before merging with the West German WASG to form the Left Party (Die Linke). The Left Party continues to be a political force in many parts of Germany, albeit drastically less powerful than the SED.[53]

The East German population declined by three million people throughout its forty-one year history, from 19 million in 1948 to 16 million in 1990; of the 1948 population, some 4 million were deported from the lands east of the Oder-Neisse line.[54] This was a stark contrast from Poland, which increased during that time; from 24 million in 1950 (a little more than East Germany) to 38 million (more than twice of East Germany's population). This was primarily a result of emigration—about one quarter of East Germans left the country before the Berlin Wall was completed in 1961,[55] and after that time, East Germany had very low birth rates,[56] except for a recovery in the 1980s when the birth rate in East Germany was considerably higher than in West Germany.[57]

East Berlin was made the country’s 15th Bezirk in 1961 but retained special legal status until 1968, when the residents approved the new (draft) constitution. Despite the city as a whole being legally under the control of the Allied Control Council, and diplomatic objections of the Allied governments, the GDR administered the Bezirk of Berlin as part of its territory.

The government of East Germany had control over a large number of military and paramilitary organisations through various ministries. Chief among these was the Ministry of National Defence. Because of East Germany's proximity to the West during the Cold War (1945–91), its military forces were among the most advanced of the Warsaw Pact. Defining what was a military force and what was not is a matter of some dispute.

The Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) was the largest military organisation in East Germany. It was formed in 1956 from the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (Barracked People's Police), the military units of the regular police (Volkspolizei), when East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact. From its creation, it was controlled by the Ministry of National Defence (East Germany). It was an all volunteer force until an eighteen-month conscription period was introduced in 1962. It was considered one of the most professional and best prepared military forces in the world. The NVA consisted of the following branches:

The border troops of the Eastern sector were originally organised as a police force, the Deutsche Grenzpolizei, similar to the Bundesgrenzschutz in West Germany. It was controlled by the Ministry of the Interior. Following the remilitarisation of East Germany in 1956, the Deutsche Grenzpolizei was transformed into a military force in 1961, modeled after the Soviet Border Troops, and transferred to the Ministry of National Defense, as part of the National People's Army. In 1973, it was separated from the NVA, but it remained under the same ministry. It was an all-volunteer force. At its peak, it numbered approximately 47,000 men.

After the NVA was separated from the Volkspolizei in 1956, the Ministry of the Interior maintained its own public order barracked reserve, known as the Volkspolizei-Bereitschaften (VPB). These units were, like the Kasernierte Volkspolizei, equipped as motorised infantry, and they numbered between 12,000 and 15,000 men.

The Ministry of State Security (Stasi) included the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, which was mainly involved with facilities security and plain clothes events security. They were the only part of the feared Stasi that was visible to the public, and so were very unpopular within the population. The Stasi numbered around 90,000 men, the Guards Regiment around 11,000-12,000 men.

The Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (combat groups of the working class) numbered around 400,000 for much of their existence, and were organised around factories and neighbourhoods. The KdA was the political-military instrument of the SED; it was essentially a "party Army". All KdA directives and decisions were made by the ZK's Politbüro. They received their training from the Volkspolizei and the Ministry of the Interior. Membership was voluntary, but SED members were required to join as part of their membership obligation.

Every man was required to serve eighteen months of compulsory military service; for the medically unqualified and conscientious objector, there were the Baueinheiten (construction units), established in 1964, two years after the introduction of conscription, in response to political pressure by the national Lutheran Protestant Church upon the GDR’s government. In the 1970s, East German leaders acknowledged that former construction soldiers were at a disadvantage when they rejoined the civilian sphere.

The East German state promoted an anti-imperialist line that was reflected in all its media and all the schools.[58] This line followed Lenin's theory of imperialism as the highest and last stage of capitalism, and Dimitrov's theory of fascism as the dictatorship of the most reactionary elements of financial capitalism. Popular reaction to these measures was mixed, and Western media penetrated the country both through cross-border television and radio broadcasts from West Germany and from the American propaganda network Radio Free Europe. Dissidents, particularly professionals, sometimes fled to West Germany, which was relatively easy before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.[59][60]

After receiving wider international diplomatic recognition in 1972–73, the DDR began active cooperation with Third World socialist governments and national liberation movements. While the USSR was in control of the overall strategy and Cuban armed forces were involved in the actual combat (mostly in the People's Republic of Angola and socialist Ethiopia), the DDR provided experts for military hardware maintenance and personnel training, and oversaw creation of secret security agencies based on its own Stasi model.

The first military agreement was signed in 1973 with the People's Republic of the Congo. In 1979 friendship treaties were signed with Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

It was estimated that altogether, 2000–4000 DDR military and security experts were dispatched to Africa. In addition, representatives from African and Arab countries and liberation movements underwent military training in the DDR.[61]

The Trabant automobile was a profitable product made in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The East German economy began poorly because of the devastation caused by the Second World War; the loss of so many young soldiers, the disruption of business and transportation, and finally reparations owed to the USSR. The Red Army dismantled and transported to Russia the infrastructure and industrial plants of the Soviet Zone of Occupation. By the early 1950s, the reparations were paid in agricultural and industrial products; and Lower Silesia, with its coal mines and Szczecin, an important natural port, were given to Poland by the decision of Stalin.[36]

The socialist centrally planned economy of the German Democratic Republic was like that of the USSR. In 1950, the GDR joined the COMECON trade bloc. In 1985, collective (state) enterprises earned 96.7% of the net national income. To ensure stable prices for goods and services, the state paid 80% of basic supply costs. The estimated 1984 per capita income was $9,800 ($22,600 in 2015 dollars). In 1976, the average annual growth of the GDP was approximately five percent. This made East German economy the richest in all of the Soviet Bloc until 1990 after the fall of Communism in the country.[62]

Until the 1960s, East Germans endured shortages of basic foodstuffs such as sugar and coffee. East Germans with friends or relatives in the West (or with any access to a hard currency) and the necessary Staatsbankforeign currency account could afford Western products and export-quality East German products via Intershop. Consumer goods also were available, by post, from the Danish Jauerfood, and Genex companies.

The government used money and prices as political devices, providing highly subsidised prices for a wide range of basic goods and services, in what was known as "the second pay packet".[63] At the production level, artificial prices made for a system of semi-barter and resource hoarding. For the consumer, it led to the substitution of GDR money with time, barter, and hard currencies. Ironically, the socialist economy became steadily more dependent on financial infusions from hard-currency loans from West Germany. East Germans, meanwhile, came to see their soft currency as worthless relative to the Deutsche Mark (DM).[64]

Many western commentators have maintained that loyalty to the SED was a primary criterion for getting a good job, and that professionalism was secondary to political criteria in personnel recruitment and development.[65]

No worker could be sacked, unless for serious misconduct or incompetence; even in such cases, alternative work would be offered.[citation needed] The GDR had no system of unemployment benefit because the concept of unemployment did not exist.[citation needed]

With a very low birth rate and a high rate of exodus, East Germany was losing workers. As the goal of socialism is the elimination of capitalist economics, the GDR strove to reduce wealth disparity between individuals through the elimination of private property, businesses and stores. While enforcement of this ideal led to a more economically even society, it prompted many with economic ambition or those who did not agree with its enforcement to escape—typically those with higher education: doctors, scientists, engineers, and skilled workers. This growing loss of skilled personnel was intended to be curtailed with the building of the wall.[66]

Beginning in 1963 with a series of secret international agreements, East Germany recruited workers from Poland, Hungary, Cuba, Albania, Mozambique, Angola and North Vietnam. They numbered more than 100,000 by 1989. Many, such as future politician Zeca Schall (who emigrated from Angola in 1988 as a contract worker) stayed in Germany after the Wende.[67]

Religion became contested ground in the GDR, with the governing Communists promoting state atheism, although some people remained loyal to Christian communities.[68] In 1957 the State authorities established a State Secretariat for Church Affairs to handle the government's contact with churches and with religious groups;[citation needed] the SED remained officially atheist.[69]

In 1950, 85% of the GDR citizens were Protestants, while 10% were Roman Catholics. In 1961, the renowned philosophical theologian, Paul Tillich, claimed that the Protestant population in East Germany had the most admirable Church in Protestantism, because the Communists there had not been able to win a spiritual victory over them.[70] By 1989, membership in the Christian churches dropped significantly. Protestants constituted 25% of the population, Roman Catholics 5%. The share of people who considered themselves non-religious rose from 5% in 1950 to 70% in 1989.

When it first came to power, the Communist party asserted the compatibility of Christianity and Marxism and sought Christian participation in the building of socialism. At first the promotion of atheism received little official attention. In the mid-1950s, as the Cold War heated up, atheism became a topic of major interest for the state, in both domestic and foreign contexts. University chairs and departments devoted to the study of scientific atheism were founded and much literature (scholarly and popular) on the subject was produced.[by whom?] This activity subsided in the late 1960s amid perceptions that it had started to become counterproductive. Official and scholarly attention to atheism renewed beginning in 1973, though this time with more emphasis on scholarship and on the training of cadres than on propaganda. Throughout, the attention paid to atheism in East Germany was never intended to jeopardise the cooperation that was desired from those East Germans who were religious.[71]

Between 1956 and 1971 the leadership of the East German Lutheran churches gradually changed its relations with the state from hostility to cooperation.[73] From the founding of the GDR in 1949, the Socialist Unity Party sought to weaken the influence of the church on the rising generation. The church adopted an attitude of confrontation and distance toward the state. Around 1956 this began to develop into a more neutral stance accommodating conditional loyalty. The government was no longer regarded as illegitimate; instead, the church leaders started viewing the authorities as installed by God and, therefore, deserving of obedience by Christians. But on matters where the state demanded something which the churches felt was not in accordance with the will of God, the churches reserved their right to say no. There were both structural and intentional causes behind this development. Structural causes included the hardening of Cold War tensions in Europe in the mid-1950s, which made it clear that the East German state was not temporary. The loss of church members also made it clear to the leaders of the church that they had to come into some kind of dialogue with the state. The intentions behind the change of attitude varied from a traditional liberal Lutheran acceptance of secular power to a positive attitude toward socialist ideas.[74]

Manfred Stolpe became a lawyer for the Brandenburg Protestant Church in 1959 before taking up a position at church headquarters in Berlin. In 1969 he helped found the Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR (BEK), where he negotiated with the government while at the same time working within the institutions of this Protestant body. He won the regional elections for the Brandenburg state assembly at the head of the SPD list in 1990. Stolpe remained in the Brandenburg government until he joined the federal government in 2002.

The smaller Roman Catholic Church in eastern Germany had a fully functioning episcopal hierarchy that was in full accord with the Vatican. During the early postwar years, tensions were high. The Catholic Church as a whole (and particularly the bishops) resisted both the East German state and Marxist ideology. The state allowed the bishops to lodge protests, which they did on issues such as abortion.[74]

After 1945 the Church did fairly well in integrating Catholic exiles from lands to the east (which mostly became part of Poland) and in adjusting its institutional structures to meet the needs of a church within an officially atheist society. This meant an increasingly hierarchical church structure, whereas in the area of religious education, press, and youth organisations, a system of temporary staff was developed, one that took into account the special situation of Caritas, a Catholic charity organisation. By 1950, therefore, there existed a Catholic subsociety that was well adjusted to prevailing specific conditions and capable of maintaining Catholic identity.[75][page needed]

With a generational change in the episcopacy taking place in the early 1980s, the state hoped for better relations with the new bishops, but the new bishops instead began holding unauthorised mass meetings, promoting international ties in discussions with theologians abroad, and hosting ecumenical conferences. The new bishops became less politically oriented and more involved in pastoral care and attention to spiritual concerns. The government responded by limiting international contacts for bishops.[76][need quotation to verify]

East Germany's culture was strongly influenced by communist thought and was marked by an attempt to define itself in opposition to the west, particularly West Germany and the United States. Critics of the East German state have claimed that the state's commitment to Communism was a hollow and cynical tool[who?], Machiavellian in nature, but this assertion has been challenged by studies[which?] that have found that the East German leadership was genuinely committed to the advance of scientific knowledge, economic development, and social progress. However, Pence and Betts argue, the majority of East Germans over time increasingly regarded the state's ideals to be hollow, though there was also a substantial number of East Germans who regarded their culture as having a healthier, more authentic mentality than that of West Germany.[77]

The Puhdys and Karat were some of the most popular mainstream bands in East Germany. Like most mainstream acts, they appeared in popular youth magazines such as Neues Leben and Magazin. Other popular rock bands were Wir, Dean Reed, City, Silly and Pankow. Most of these artists recorded on the state-owned AMIGA label.[citation needed]

Schlager, which was very popular in the west, also gained a foothold early on in East Germany, and numerous musicians, such as Gerd Christian, Uwe Jensen, and Hartmut Schulze-Gerlach gained national fame. From 1962 to 1976, an international schlager festival was held in Rostock, garnering participants from between 18 and 22 countries each year.[79] The city of Dresden held a similar international festival for schlager musicians from 1971 until shortly before reunification.[80] There was a national schlager contest hosted yearly in Magdeburg from 1966 to 1971 as well.[81]

West German television and radio could be received in many parts of the East. The Western influence led to the formation of more "underground" groups with a decisively western-oriented sound. A few of these bands were Die Skeptiker, Die Art and Feeling B. Additionally, hip hop culture reached the ears of the East German youth. With videos such as Beat Street and Wild Style, young East Germans were able to develop a hip hop culture of their own.[87] East Germans accepted hip hop as more than just a music form. The entire street culture surrounding rap entered the region and became an outlet for oppressed youth.[88]

The birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Eisenach, was rendered as a museum about him, featuring more than three hundred instruments, which, in 1980, received some 70,000 visitors. In Leipzig, the Bach archive contains his compositions and correspondence and recordings of his music.[89]

Theatre and cabaret had high status in the GDR, which allowed it to be very pro-active. This often brought it into confrontation with the state. Benno Besson once said, "In contrast to artists in the west, they took us seriously, we had a bearing."[92][citation needed]

The Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin is the last major building erected by the GDR, making it an exceptional architectural testimony to how Germany overcame of its former division. Here, Berlin’s great revue tradition lives on, today bringing viewers state-of-the-art shows.[93]

The prolific cinema of East Germany was headed by the DEFA,[98]Deutsche Film AG, which was subdivided in different local groups, for example Gruppe Berlin, Gruppe Babelsberg or Gruppe Johannisthal, where the local teams shot and produced films. The East German industry became known worldwide for its productions, especially children's movies (Das kalte Herz, film versions of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales and modern productions such as Das Schulgespenst).[citation needed]

The film industry was remarkable for its production of Ostern, or Western-like movies. Native Americans in these films often took the role of displaced people who fight for their rights, in contrast to the American westerns of the time, where Native Americans were often either not mentioned at all or are portrayed as the villains. Yugoslavians were often cast as the Native Americans because of the small number of Native Americans in Europe. Gojko Mitić was well known in these roles, often playing the righteous, kindhearted and charming chief (Die Söhne der großen Bärin directed by Josef Mach). He became an honorary Sioux chief when he visited the United States in the 1990s, and the television crew accompanying him showed the tribe one of his movies. American actor and singer Dean Reed, an expatriate who lived in East Germany, also starred in several films. These films were part of the phenomenon of Europe producing alternative films about the colonization of America.[citation needed]

Cinemas in the GDR also showed foreign films. Czechoslovak and Polish productions were more common, but certain western movies were shown, though the numbers of these were limited because it cost foreign exchange to buy the licences. Further, movies representing or glorifying capitalist ideology were not bought. Comedies enjoyed great popularity, such as the Danish Olsen Gang or movies with the French comedian Louis de Funès.[citation needed]

Another factor for success was the furtherance system for young people in GDR. Sport teachers at school were encouraged to look for certain talents in children ages 6 to 10 years old. For older pupils it was possible to attend grammar schools with a focus on sports (for example sailing, football and swimming). This policy was also used for talented pupils with regard to music or mathematics.[citation needed]

Television and radio in East Germany were state-run industries; the Rundfunk der DDR was the official radio broadcasting organisation from 1952 until unification. The organization was based in the Funkhaus Nalepastraße in East Berlin. Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF), from 1972 to 1990 known as Fernsehen der DDR or DDR-FS, was the state television broadcaster from 1952. Reception of Western broadcasts was widespread.[119]

By the mid-1980s, East Germany possessed a well-developed communications system. There were approximately 3.6 million telephones in usage (21.8 for every 100 inhabitants), and 16,476 Telex stations. Both of these networks were run by the Deutsche Post der DDR (East German Post Office). East Germany was assigned telephone country code +37; in 1991, several months after reunification, East German telephone exchanges were incorporated into country code +49.

An unusual feature of the telephone network was that, in most cases, direct distance dialing for long-distance calls was not possible. Although area codes were assigned to all major towns and cities, they were only used for switching international calls. Instead, each location had its own list of dialing codes with shorter codes for local calls and longer codes for long-distance calls. After unification, the existing network was largely replaced, and area codes and dialing became standardised.

In 1976 East Germany inaugurated the operation of a ground-based radio station at Fürstenwalde for the purpose of relaying and receiving communications from Soviet satellites and to serve as a participant in the international telecommunications organization established by the Soviet government, Intersputnik.

Margot Honecker, former Minister for Education of East Germany, summed up its legacy as:

"In this state, each person had a place. All children could attend school free of charge, they received vocational training or studied, and were guaranteed a job after training. Work was more than just a means to earn money. Men and women received equal pay for equal work and performance. Equality for women was not just on paper. Care for children and the elderly was the law. Medical care was free, cultural and leisure activities affordable. Social security was a matter of course. We knew no beggars or homelessness. There was a sense of solidarity. People felt responsible not only for themselves, but worked in various democratic bodies on the basis of common interests."[120]

German historian Jürgen Kocka in 2010 summarized the consensus of most recent scholarship:

"Conceptualizing the GDR as a dictatorship has become widely accepted, while the meaning of the concept dictatorship varies. Massive evidence has been collected that proves the repressive, undemocratic, illiberal, nonpluralistic character of the GDR regime and its ruling party."[121]

Many East Germans initially regarded the dissolution of the GDR positively.[122] But this reaction soon turned sour.[123] West Germans often acted as if they had "won" and East Germans had "lost" in unification, leading many East Germans (Ossis) to resent West Germans (Wessis).[124] In 2004, Ascher Barnstone wrote, "East Germans resent the wealth possessed by West Germans; West Germans see the East Germans as lazy opportunists who want something for nothing. East Germans find 'Wessis' arrogant and pushy, West Germans think the 'Ossis' are lazy good-for-nothings."[125] On a more fundamental level, unification and subsequent federal policies led to serious economic hardships for many East Germans that had not existed before the Wende. Unemployment and homelessness, which had been minimal during the communist era, grew and quickly became widespread; this, as well as the closures of countless factories and other workplaces in the east, fostered a growing sense that East Germans were being ignored or neglected by the federal government.

These and other effects of unification led many East Germans to begin to think of themselves more strongly as "East" Germans rather than as simply "Germans". In many former GDR citizens this produced a longing for some aspects of the former East Germany, such as full employment and other perceived benefits of the GDR state, termed "Ostalgie" (a blend of Ost "east" and Nostalgie "nostalgia") and depicted in the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin!.

^Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Jürgen Kocka, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Agnes Blänsdorf. Towards a Global Community of Historians: the International Historical Congresses and the International Committee of Historical Sciences 1898–2000. Berghahn Books, 2005, pp. 314. ("However the collapse of the Soviet empire, associated with the disintegration of the Soviet satellite regimes in East-Central Europe, including the German Democratic Republic, brought about a dramatic change of agenda.")

^The use of the abbreviation BRD (FRG) for West Germany, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany), on the other hand, was never accepted in West Germany since it was considered a political statement. Thus BRD (FRG) was a term used by East Germans, or by West Germans who held a pro-East-German view. Colloquially, West Germans called West Germany simply "Germany" (reflecting West Germany's claim to represent the whole of Germany) or, alternatively, the Bundesrepublik or Bundesgebiet (federal republic, or federal territory, respectively), referring to the country, and Bundesbürger (federal citizen[s]) for its citizens, with the adjective, bundesdeutsch (federal German).

^Lora Wildenthal. The Language of Human Rights in West Germany. p. 210.

^Cornfield, Daniel B. and Hodson, Randy (2002). Worlds of Work: Building an International Sociology of Work. Springer, p. 223. ISBN0306466058

^Each spring, millions of workmen from all parts of western Russia arrived in eastern Germany, which, in political language, is called East Elbia. from The Stronghold of Junkerdom, by George Sylvester Viereck. Viereck's, Volume 8. Fatherland Corporation, 1918

^"State symbols: the quest for legitimacy in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, 1949–1959", by Margarete Myers Feinstein, page 78: " ... claims of East Berlin as the capital of the GDR, ... East Berlin was not recognized by the West and most Third World countries"

^Michael D. Haydock, City Under Siege: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948–1949 (2000)

^Weitz 1997, p. 350: Following a Soviet order in February 1948, the German Economic Commission became a nascent state structure for all intents and purposes, with competence far beyond the economy proper and it was granted power to issue orders and directives to all German organs within the Soviet Occupation Zone.

^McCauley 1983, p. 38: The DWK had become the de facto government of the Soviet zone. Its chairman was Heinrich Rau (SED) and four of his six deputies were also SED members.

^Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmund, Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany under Ulbricht, 1945–71 (2002)

^"In the period between the Second World War and 1961, a total of 3.8 million people emigrated from East to West Germany." Laar, M. (2009). "The Power of Freedom. Central and Eastern Europe after 1945." Centre for European Studies, p. 58. "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 5 April 2012.

^Mary Fulbrook, "The Limits Of Totalitarianism: God, State and Society in the GDR," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Jan 1957, Vol. 7 Issue 1, pp 25–52

^de Silva, Brendan (2000). "The Protestant Church and the East German State: an organisational perspective". In Cooke, Paul; Grix, Jonathan. East Germany: Continuity and Change. German Monitor. Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V. pp. 104–105. ISBN9789042005792. Retrieved 21 September 2015. 'The SED will refrain from talks with the churches, since it must be seen as an "atheistic party against the Church". Thus, negotiations must be led by the State, which is understood to be non-partisan, namely by the state Secretary for Church Affairs. But decisions on Church policies are to be made exclusively "in the party" [...].'

^Paul Tillich. Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 20.

^Fulbrook, "The Limits Of Totalitarianism: God, State and Society in the GDR"

^Brown, Timothy S. "‘Keeping it Real’ in a Different ‘Hood: (African-) Americanization and Hip-hop in Germany." In The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, page.137–150. London; A

^Elfein, Dietmar. From Krauts with Attitudes to Turks with Attitudes: Some Aspects of Hip-Hop History in Germany. Popular Music, vol. 17:3, pp. 225–265, October 1998.

^Davies, Cecil William (1 January 1977). Theatre for the People: The Story of the Volksbühne. Manchester University Press. p. 126. ISBN9780719006661.

Steding, Elizabeth Priester. "Losing Literature: The Reduction of the GDR to History." German Politics & Society 32.4 (2014): 39-55. Argues the history of East Germany is taught in the 21st century German schools, but not its literature.

1.
Former eastern territories of Germany
–
The former eastern territories of Germany are those provinces or regions east of the current eastern border of Germany which were lost by Germany after World War I and then World War II. All territories lost in both World Wars account for 33% of the former German Empire, while land ceded by Germany after World War II constituted roughly 25% of its pre-war Weimar territory. The post-war border between Germany and Poland along the Oder–Neisse line was recognized by East Germany in 1950 by the Treaty of Zgorzelec. In 1952, recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as a permanent boundary was one of Stalins conditions for the Soviet Union to agree to a reunification of Germany, the offer was rejected by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. In 1970, West Germany recognised the line as a de facto boundary in the Treaty of Warsaw, with this repeal the post-1990 boundaries of Germany are closed to further expansion. In German there is only one term, Ostdeutschland, meaning East Germany or Eastern Germany. The rather ambiguous German term never gained prevailing use for the GDR as did the English term, since Ostdeutschland has been used to denote the post-war and the respective five states of the reunited Germany. At the time of the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, prussian territory east of the Oder-Neisse line included West Prussia and Posen, also Silesia, East Brandenburg, and Pomerania. Later, these territories would come to be called in Germany Ostgebiete des deutschen Reiches, the territories ceded to Poland in 1919 were those with an apparent Polish majority, such as the Province of Posen, the east-southern part of Upper Silesia and the Polish Corridor. The city of Danzig with the delta of the Vistula river at the Baltic Sea, was made the Free City of Danzig under the League of Nations, however, as distinct from other lost Czechoslovakian domains, it was not attached to Sudetengau but to Prussia. By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in the Memel Territory, between the two world wars, many in Germany claimed that the territory ceded to Poland in 1919–1922 should be returned to Germany. This claim was one of the justifications for the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Third Reich annexed the former German lands, comprising the Polish Corridor, West Prussia, the Province of Posen, and parts of eastern Upper Silesia. The council of the Free City of Danzig voted to become a part of Germany again, although Poles and Jews were deprived of their voting rights, in addition to taking territories lost in 1919, Germany also took additional land that had never been German. These territories had an area of 94,000 km2 and a population of 10,000,000 people, the remainder of Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone. The open question was whether the border should follow the Eastern or Lusatian Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, originally, Germany was to retain Stettin while the Poles were to annex East Prussia with Königsberg. Eventually, however, Stalin decided that he wanted Königsberg as a warm water port for the Soviet Navy. The wartime Polish government in exile had little to say in these decisions, at the Yalta Conference, it was agreed to split Germany into four occupation zones after the war, with a quadripartite occupation of Berlin as well, prior unification of Germany. The status of Poland was discussed, but was complicated by the fact that Poland was at this time under the control of the Red Army and this effectively excluded the Polish government-in-exile that had evacuated in 1939

2.
New states of Germany
–
The new states, which had been abolished by the East German government in 1952 and were re-established in 1990, are Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The state of Berlin, the result of a merger between East and West Berlin, is not considered one of the new states, although many of its residents are former East Germans. Since the reunification, Germany thus consists of 16 states with equal legal statuses, yet the process of the inner reunification between the former Eastern and Western Germany is still ongoing. Persisting differences in culture and mentality among the old East Germany, ossis are stereotyped as racist, poor and largely influenced by Russian culture. Wessis are usually considered snobbish, dishonest, wealthy, and selfish, the terms can be considered disparaging. In 2009, twenty years after the fall of the wall, 62% feel in a kind of limbo, no longer citizens of East Germany but not fully integrated into the unified Germany. Around 11% would have liked to have East Germany back, a 2004 poll found that 25% of West Germans and 12% of East Germans wished reunification had not happened. Some East German brands have been revived, appealing to former East Germans who are nostalgic for the goods they grew up with, another notable difference is the attitude towards naturism or FKK in German. While it existed in both East and West, only in the East was it a cultural phenomenon in which almost everybody participated. This can still be seen at beaches of former East Germany compared to their West German counterparts, more children are born out of wedlock in eastern Germany than in western Germany. In 2009, in eastern Germany 61% of births were to unmarried women, the states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had the highest rate of birth outside wedlock, each with 64%, followed by Brandenburg with 62%. The state of Baden-Württemberg had the lowest rate with 22%, followed by Hesse and Bavaria, the economic reconstruction of eastern Germany is proving to be more long-term than originally foreseen. The standard of living and annual income significantly lower in the new federal states. Reunification cost the federal government €2 Trillion, at reunification, almost all East German industry was considered outdated. The government privatised 8,500 state-owned East German enterprises, since 1990, between €100 billion and €140 billion a year have been transferred to the new states. More than $60 billion were spent supporting businesses and building infrastructure in the years 2006-2008. A €156 billion economic plan, Solidarity Pact II, came into force in 2005, the tax, which raises €11 billion a year, will be maintained until 2019 at least. Ever since the reunification, the unemployment rate in the east has been almost twice that of the west, the unemployment rate reached 12. 7% in April 2010, after having reached a maximum of 18. 7% in 2005

3.
East Germanic languages
–
The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Germanic languages of the Indo-European language family spoken by East Germanic peoples. Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century, by the 1st century AD, the writings of Pomponius Mela, Pliny the elder, and Tacitus indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into large groupings with shared ancestry and culture. In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and northern Poland from period III onwards was so considerable that this region is included in the Nordic Bronze Age culture. There is also archaeological and toponymic evidence that Burgundians lived on the Danish island of Bornholm, schwedischen Akademie der Literatur, Geschichte und Altertumsforschung über das Julita-Symposium 1986. La formation de lEurope et les invasions barbares, Paris, Editions Montaigne, contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BCE –500 CE. Musset, L. Les invasions, les vagues germanique, Paris, about the Gothic Peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent

4.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form

5.
Warsaw Pact
–
The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, East Germany and Poland withdrew from the Pact in 1990. On 25 February 1991, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defence, the USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. Throughout the following 20 years, the seven Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO, in the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces, the strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to keep their part of Europe theirs and not let the Americans take it from them and this policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism, geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory by Western European powers. Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and these states protested strongly against the re-militarization of West Germany. The Warsaw Pact was primarily put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO, Soviet leaders, like many European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The terrible consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets, previously, in March 1954, the USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, requested admission to NATO. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. James Dunn, who met in Paris with Eden, Adenauer and Robert Schuman, affirmed that the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians, according to John Gaddis there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer from USSR. But Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal, the Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement. Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said that NATO must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella. He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force, in April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles. Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that EDC would have to become a part of NATO, memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too

6.
Flag of East Germany
–
The flag of East Germany was the official national flag of the East German state from 1949 to 1990. The flags design and symbolism are derived from the flag of the Weimar Republic, meanwhile, the eastern Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany. During the preparation of the new constitution for West Germany, discussions regarding its national symbols took place in August 1948 during a meeting at Herrenchiemsee, although there were objections to the creation of a national flag before reunification with the east, it was decided to proceed. This decision was motivated by the proposed constitution by the eastern SED in November 1946. While there were suggestions for the new flag for West Germany. Wirmer suggested a variant of the 1944 Resistance flag designed by his brother and 20 July co-conspirator Josef, the tricolour was ultimately selected, largely to illustrate the continuity between the Weimar Republic and this new German state. With the enactment of the German constitution on 23 May 1949, in 1955, the inhabitants of the French-administered Saar Protectorate voted to join West Germany. Since its establishment as a separate French protectorate in 1947, the Saar had a white Nordic cross on a blue and this flag came into force on 1 January 1957, upon the establishment of the Saarland as a state of West Germany. This choice was based on the use of colours by the National Committee for a Free Germany. From 1949 to 1959, the flags of both West and East Germany were identical, on 1 October 1959, the East German government changed its flag with the addition of its coat of arms. In West Germany, these changes were seen as an attempt to divide the two Germanies. Displaying this flag in West Germany and West Berlin—where it became known as the Spalterflagge —was seen as a breach of the constitution and subsequently banned until the late 1960s. From 1956 to 1964, West and East Germany attended the Winter and Summer Olympic Games as a single team, after the East German national flag was changed in 1959, neither country accepted the flag of the other. As a compromise, a new flag was used by the Unified Team of Germany from 1960 to 1964, in 1968 the teams from the two German states entered separately, but both used the same German Olympic flag. From 1972 to 1988, the separate West and East German teams used their national flags. On the centenary of the Berlin March days in March 1948, the choice was between three flags, one red, another black-white-red, and the last option black-red-gold. The proposal to introduce the red flag, was quickly discarded, as a sign of communist and the international labor movement this flag was rejected even during the November Revolution of 1918 by the bourgeoisie. As in Germany, the decision should fall in favor of the black, red, against this flag but was initially the Soviet Union

7.
National Emblem of East Germany
–
The national emblem of the German Democratic Republic featured a hammer and a compass, surrounded by a ring of rye. It was an example of what has been called socialist heraldry, the hammer represented the workers in the factories. The compass represented the intelligentsia, and the ring of rye the farmers, the first designs included only the hammer and ring of rye, as an expression of the GDR as a communist Workers and Farmers state. Surrounded by a wreath, the emblem also acted as the emblem for the East German National Peoples Army. When the federated states in East Germany were abolished and replaced by Bezirke, making the GDR into a unitary state, the East Berlin government did not want regional symbols to be used, since they could stir up regional patriotism and movements for independence. The emblem was adopted as the GDRs national emblem by a law of 26 September 1955, the display of the national emblem was for some years regarded as unconstitutional in West Germany and West Berlin and was prevented by the police. Only in 1969 did the West German government of Willy Brandt reverse this policy in what was known as Ostpolitik, after the ruling Socialist Unity Party fell from power, the political progress of die Wende saw suggestions for a new national emblem. One prominent suggestion was an image of a smith remaking a sword to a plough along with the text Schwerter zu Pflugscharen, there was never a decision made for a new national coat of arms or emblem. The emblem was never formally abolished but became obsolete on the moment the German Democratic Republic was dissolved

8.
Workers of the world, unite!
–
Five years before the Communist Manifesto, the phrase appeared in the 1843 book The Workers Union by Flora Tristan. It reflected Marxs and Engels view of proletarian internationalism, first that workers should unite in unions to better push for their demands such as workplace pay and conditions. Secondly, that workers should see beyond their various craft unions, and thirdly, that workers of different countries have more in common with each other than workers and employers of the same country. The phrase was used by the Industrial Workers of the World in propaganda and songs, the IWW used it when opposing World War I in both the USA and Australia. The slogan was the Soviet Unions state motto, appeared in the State Emblem of the Soviet Union, on 1919 Russian SFSR banknotes, on Soviet coins from 1921 to 1934, the nascent USSR under Vladimir Lenin was oriented toward international communism. Contemporarily, some socialist and communist parties continue using it, moreover, it is a common usage in popular culture, often chanted during labor strikes and protests. In the first Swedish translation of the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, later translations have, however, included the original slogan. Amongst Maoist-oriented groups a variation invented by Vladimir Lenin, Workers and Oppressed Peoples and Nations of the World and this slogan was the rallying cry of the 2nd Comintern congress in 1920, and denoted the anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist agenda of the Comintern. The phrase has been translated into many languages, all of the Soviet Socialist Republics in the Soviet Union had it as their motto translated into the local languages. An extensive list of translations is available at Wiktionary. Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

9.
Auferstanden aus Ruinen
–
Auferstanden aus Ruinen was the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany, during its existence from 1949 to 1990. In 1949, the Soviet occupation zone of Allied-occupied Germany became a Socialist state called the German Democratic Republic, for its anthem, the poet Johannes R. Becher, who later became Minister of Culture, wrote the lyrics. Two musicians proposed music to Bechers lyrics, and the version of Hanns Eisler was selected, consequently, Bechers lyrics develop several connotations of unity and combine them with fatherland, meaning Germany as a whole. However, this concept soon would not conform to an increasingly icy Cold War context, in 1973, East and West Germany were admitted to the United Nations simultaneously, following talks between the two governments that conferred a degree of mutual recognition. The term Germany was later removed from the GDR constitution, auferstanden aus Ruinen ceased to be a national anthem when the German Democratic Republic dissolved and its states joined the Federal Republic of Germany in the German reunification in 1990. Das Lied der Deutschen, composed in 1841, became again the anthem of a united Germany, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière had proposed that Bechers lyrics be added to the united German anthem, but this was rejected by his West German counterpart, chancellor Helmut Kohl. At the end of its last broadcast on 2 October 1990, the East German international radio broadcaster Radio Berlin International signed off with the vocal version of the anthem

10.
East Berlin
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East Berlin existed between 1949 and 1990 and consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors became West Berlin, strongly associated with West Germany, from 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. In East German official usage, it widespread in the 1970s to refer to the Western part of the city as Westberlin. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the city that was called Magistrate of Greater Berlin. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administrated the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, however, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a city government was established. When the German Democratic Republic was formed in 1949, it immediately claimed East Berlin as its capital - a claim that was recognized by all Communist countries, nevertheless, its representatives to the Peoples Chamber were not directly elected and did not have full voting rights until 1981. In June 1948, all railways and roads leading to West Berlin were blocked, however, more than one-thousand East Germans were escaping to West Berlin each day by 1960. In August 1961, the East German Government tried to stop that from happening by building the Berlin Wall and it was very dangerous for illegal migrants to cross because of the presence of armed guards that were trained to shoot people in such cases. East Germany was a socialist republic, but there was not complete economic equality, privileges such as prestigious apartments and good schooling were given to members of the ruling party and their family. Eventually, Christian churches were allowed to operate without restraint after years of harassment by authorities, in the 1970s wages of East Berliners rose and working hours fell. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U. S. military, in fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested against the presence of the East German National Peoples Army in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognized it as the capital of East Germany, treaties instead used terms such as seat of government. On 3 October 1990, West and East Germany and West and East Berlin were reunited, after reunification, the East German economy suffered significantly. Many East German factories were shut due to inability to comply with West German pollution and safety standards. Because of this, an amount of West German economic aid was poured into East Germany to revitalize it. This stimulus was part-funded through a 7. 5% tax on income, despite the large sums of economic aid poured into East Berlin, there still remain obvious differences between the former East and West Berlin. East Berlin has a visual style, this is partly due to the greater survival of prewar façades and streetscapes

11.
One-party state
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All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections. One-party states explain themselves through various methods, most often, proponents of a one-party state argue that the existence of separate parties runs counter to national unity. Others argue that the one party is the vanguard of the people, the Soviet government argued that multiple parties represented the class struggle, which was absent in Soviet society, and so the Soviet Union only had one party, the Communist Party. Some one-party states only outlaw opposition parties, while allowing allied parties to exist as part of a permanent coalition such as a popular front. However, these parties are largely or completely subservient to the ruling party, examples of this are the Peoples Republic of China under the United Front, or the National Front in former East Germany. Others may allow non-party members to run for seats, as was the case with Taiwans Tangwai movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Within their own countries, dominant parties ruling over one-party states are referred to simply as the Party. One-party systems often arise from decolonization because one party has had a dominant role in liberation or in independence struggles. One-party states are often, but not always, considered to be authoritarian or totalitarian, however, not all authoritarian or totalitarian states operate based on one-party rule. Some, especially absolute monarchies and certain military dictatorships, have all political parties illegal. The term communist state is used in the West to apply to states in which the ruling party subscribes to a form of Marxism–Leninism. While the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the constitution, no party is permitted to campaign or run candidates for election, the party was conceived by the original Black American settlers and their descendants who referred to themselves as Americo-Liberians. Initially, its ideology was influenced by that of the Whig Party in the United States. Over time it developed into a powerful Masonic Order that ruled every aspect of Liberian society for well over a century until it was overthrown in 1980, while the True Whig Party still exists today, its influence has substantially declined

12.
Socialist state
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A socialist state or socialist republic refers to any state that is constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. Aside from the Communist states, a number of states have described their orientation as socialist in their constitutions. In such cases, the system and machinery of government is not specifically structured to pursue the development of socialism. The concept of a socialist state is related to state socialism. Specifically, the state would become an entity for production as opposed to a mechanism for political control. According to Friedrich Engels, Saint-Simon foreshadowed the classical Marxist notion of the development of the state in a socialist society, karl Marx understood the state to be an instrument of the class rule, dominated by the interests of the ruling class in any mode of production. This transitional stage would involve working-class interests dominating government policy, in the manner that capitalist-class interests dominate government policy under capitalism. Karl Marx described the Paris Commune as the prototype for a government of the future. Friedrich Engels noted that all officials, high or low, were only the wages received by other workers. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, such a state would be a temporary affair, Engels argued. A new generation, he suggested, brought up in new and free social conditions, the Leninist conception of a socialist state is tied to Vladimir Lenins theory of the revolutionary party and organizational principles of democratic centralism. These ideas were adopted by Vladimir Lenin in 1917 just prior to the October Revolution in Russia and published in The State and Revolution, a central text for many Marxists. Vladimir Lenin argued that as socialism is replaced by communism, the state would wither away as strong centralized control progressively reduces as local communities gain more empowerment, as he put succinctly, So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state, states run by Communist parties that adhere to Marxism–Leninism, or some variation thereof, refer to themselves as socialist states. The Soviet Union was the first to proclaim itself a socialist state in its 1936 Constitution, another well-known example is the Peoples Republic of China, which proclaims itself to be a socialist state in its 1982 Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China. In the West, such states are known as communist states. This often includes at least the commanding heights of the economy to be nationalized, usually operated according to a plan of production, at least in the major production and social spheres. These Communist states often dont claim to have achieved socialism in their countries, rather, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea used to be a Marxist–Leninist state

13.
Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics

14.
Unitary state
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The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states,165 of them are governed as unitary states, unitary states are contrasted with federal states. In a unitary state, sub-national units are created and abolished, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an example of a unitary state. Many unitary states have no areas possessing a degree of autonomy, in such countries, sub-national regions cannot decide their own laws. Examples are the Republic of Ireland and the Kingdom of Norway, in federal states, the sub-national governments share powers with the central government as equal actors through a written constitution, to which the consent of both is required to make amendments. This means that the units have a right of existence. The United States of America is an example of a federal state, under the U. S. Constitution, powers are shared between the federal government and the states

15.
Wilhelm Pieck
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Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic and his successor as head of state was Walter Ulbricht, who served as chairman of the Council of State. Pieck was born the son of a coachman in the part of Guben, Germany. While he initially trained to become a carpenter, a combination of events, determined ideology. As a carpenter, in 1894 Pieck joined the wood-workers federation, Pieck became the chairman of the party urban district in 1899, and in 1906 became full-time secretary of the SPD. As Bremen Party secretary in 1916, Pieck had asked Anton Pannekoek to continue teaching socialist theory in the party school, although the majority of the SPD supported the German government in World War I, Pieck was a member of the partys left wing, which opposed the war. Piecks openness in doing so led to his arrest and detention in a military prison, after being released, Pieck briefly lived in exile in Amsterdam. Upon his return to Berlin in 1918, Pieck joined the newly founded Communist Party of Germany, on January 16,1919 Pieck, along with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were arrested, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were then murdered while being taken to prison by a unit of Freikorps. While the two were being murdered, Pieck managed to escape, in 1922, he became a founding member of the International Red Aid, serving first on the executive committee. In May 1925, he became the chairman of the Rote Hilfe, following the Nazi Partys takeover in 1933, Pieck went into exile again, first in France, then in Moscow in 1935. In Moscow, Pieck served the Communist Party in a variety of capacities, from 1935 until 1943, he held the position of Secretary of the Communist International. In 1943 Pieck was among the founders of the National Committee for a Free Germany, the NKFD planned for the future of Germany after World War II. At the conclusion of the war in 1945 Pieck returned to Germany with the victorious Red Army, a year later, he helped engineer the merger of the eastern branches of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. He was elected as the merged partys co-chairman, alongside former SPD leader Otto Grotewohl, in 1949 Pieck was elected president of the GDR. He served as the president of the GDR until his death in 1960. He lost the chairmanship of the SED in 1950, when Walter Ulbricht became the partys first secretary, nonetheless, due to Joseph Stalins trust in him, he retained his other posts. Pieck lived at Majakowskiring 29, Pankow, East Berlin and his daughter Elly Winter held various posts in the SED and East German government

16.
Egon Krenz
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Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz is a former East German politician who was the last communist leader of East Germany during the final months of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany, throughout his career, Krenz held a number of prominent positions in the SED. He was Honeckers deputy from 1984 onward, until he succeeded him in 1989 amid protests against the regime, Krenz was unsuccessful in his attempt to retain the communist regimes grip on power, and was forced to resign some weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After German reunification in 1990 he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for manslaughter and he retired to the small town of Dierhagen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern upon his release from prison in late 2003. Krenz was born in Kolberg in what was part of Germany and his family resettled in Damgarten in 1944. After serving in the Volksarmee, Krenz joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1955, throughout his career, Krenz held a number of posts in the SED and the communist government. He was leader of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation from 1971 to 1974 and he was also a member of the Peoples Chamber from 1971 to 1990, and a member of its presidium from 1971 to 1981. Between 1974 and 1983, he was leader of the communist youth movement, from 1981 to 1984 he was a member of the Council of State. In 1983 he joined the Politburo and became a secretary of the committee with responsibility for security. He rose to prominence when he became Honeckers deputy on the Council of State in 1984. Around the same time, he replaced Paul Verner as the unofficial number-two man in the SED leadership, although he was the youngest member of the Politburo, speculation abounded that Honecker had tapped him as his heir apparent. Krenz had been approached several months earlier about ousting Honecker, but was reluctant to move against a man he called my foster father and political teacher. He was initially willing to wait until the seriously ill Honecker died, despite many protests, the Peoples Chamber elected Krenz to both of Honeckers major state posts—Chairman of the Council of State and Chairman of the National Defence Council. For only the time in the Peoples Chambers forty-year history. In his first address as leader, Krenz promised democratic reforms, for instance, they still remembered that after the Tiananmen Square massacre, he had gone to China to thank Deng Xiaoping on behalf of the regime. For this and other reasons, Krenz was almost as detested as Honecker had been, indeed, almost as soon as he took power, thousands of East Germans took to the streets to demand his resignation. Also on the day he took office, Krenz received a top secret report from planning chief Gerhard Schürer that showed the depths of East Germanys economic crisis. It showed that East Germany did not have money to make payments on the massive foreign loans that propped up the economy

17.
Heads of State of East Germany
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The political leadership of East Germany was in the hands of several offices. Prior the proclamation of an East German state, the Soviets established in 1948 the German Economic Commission as a de facto government in their occupation zone. On 7 October 1949 an East German state, called the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed, for most of its existence, the most important position in the GDR was that of the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party. The Communist party and its leader held ultimate power and authority over state, the formal head of state originally was the President of the German Democratic Republic. After the death of incumbent Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the office was replaced by a head of state. The position of chairman was commonly held by the party leader, government was headed by the Council of Ministers and its chairman, sometimes colloquially called Prime Minister. The Council was composed exclusively of members of the SEDs Central Committee and Politburo, hence, the partys subsequent leaders were no more leaders of East Germany than the leaders of other parties. List of German monarchs President of Germany President of Germany List of German presidents Chancellor of Germany List of Chancellors of Germany World Statesmen – East Germany

18.
Sabine Bergmann-Pohl
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Sabine Bergmann-Pohl is a German doctor and politician. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, she was president of the Peoples Chamber of East Germany from April to October 1990, as such, she served as acting head of state of East Germany until its merger into West Germany in October. After the reunification of Germany, she served in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl was born in Eisenach, Thuringia. After leaving school in 1964, Bergmann-Pohl was initially not admitted to university, in 1966, she began to study medicine and graduated in 1972 with a diploma in medicine. From 1979, she worked as a lung specialist and in 1980 earned a medical doctorate, from 1980 to 1985, she was medical director of the polyclinic department for lung diseases, and tuberculosis in Berlin-Friedrichshain. From 1985 to 1990, she was Medical Director at the District Office for lung diseases, since 1990 Bergmann-Pohl has been the Patron of the General Disabled Persons in Germany and since 2003 President of the Berlin Red Cross. Also since 2003 she has been a member of the Presidium of the International Federation and has been a president since 2007. In 1981, she joined the CDU, one of the parties of the GDR. In the general election of March 1990, the free election ever held in East Germany, she was elected to the Peoples Chamber. On the same day, parliament also abolished the State Council, after the 1990 all-German election, she was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Health on 18 January 1991. Following her partys defeat in the 1998 election, she departed from the government on 26 October 1998, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl is married and has two children. Dissertation Academy for Medical Training of East Berlin,1981, Berlin-Karow,1976, looking back at the year of the Unification. Ullstein, Berlin - Frankfurt/Main,1991 ISBN 3-550-07802-1 Sabine Bergmann-Pohl & Paul B, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin 2007 ISBN 978-3-939826-46-0 Profile at Bundestag. de

19.
Heads of Government of East Germany
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The political leadership of East Germany was in the hands of several offices. Prior the proclamation of an East German state, the Soviets established in 1948 the German Economic Commission as a de facto government in their occupation zone. On 7 October 1949 an East German state, called the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed, for most of its existence, the most important position in the GDR was that of the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party. The Communist party and its leader held ultimate power and authority over state, the formal head of state originally was the President of the German Democratic Republic. After the death of incumbent Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the office was replaced by a head of state. The position of chairman was commonly held by the party leader, government was headed by the Council of Ministers and its chairman, sometimes colloquially called Prime Minister. The Council was composed exclusively of members of the SEDs Central Committee and Politburo, hence, the partys subsequent leaders were no more leaders of East Germany than the leaders of other parties. List of German monarchs President of Germany President of Germany List of German presidents Chancellor of Germany List of Chancellors of Germany World Statesmen – East Germany

20.
Otto Grotewohl
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Otto Grotewohl was a German politician and the first prime minister of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 until his death in 1964. Grotewohl was born in the city of Braunschweig on 11 March 1894, following World War I started his political career as a leader of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and minister in the Free State of Brunswick. In 1922 Grotewohl with the majority of the USPD members joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany, dismissed after the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933 he was imprisoned several times. Grotewohl, after hesitation, yielded to the pressure by the Soviet Military Administration. In April 1946, the KPD and the branch of the DOD merged as the Socialist Unity Party, with Pieck. With the establishment of the German Democratic Republic on 7 October 1949, Grotewohl became the GDRs first prime minister, with the creation of the Council of Ministers government of the GDR in 1950 Grotewohl, as Ministerpräsident, became its first chairman. The actual power holder however was Walter Ulbricht, General Secretary of the governing SED Central Committee from 1950 onward, unlike most of his SED colleagues, Grotewohl was known to favour a more humane way of ruling the country. In a major speech to an SED party conference on 28 March 1956 and he denounced illegal arrests, called for more respect for civil rights, and even asked the parliament to develop lively debate. He also made a veiled criticism of Justice Minister Hilde Benjamins notoriously heavy-handed handling of political trials and he retained his posts due to the Kremlins trust in him. In 1960 he was diagnosed with leukemia, from which he died on 21 September 1964, however, he had not been fully active since 1961, when he began receiving medical treatment in the Soviet Union. After his death, the Wilhelmstrasse in East Berlin was renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße in his honor, on 15 April 1986, the present-day Mohrenstraße U-Bahn station in eastern Berlin, then known as the Thälmannplatz station, was also renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße. The Third German School in Chapayesky Lane, Moscow, was named Otto Grotewohl School, in 1949 he married his secretary Johanna Schumann, née Danielzik. He was an avid artist, painter, and amateur filmmaker, review of Hoffmann, Dierk, _Otto Grotewohl, Eine politische Biographie_ H-German, H-Net Reviews. Online Loeding, Matthias, Der Handlungsspielraum des Zentralausschusses der SPD in Berlin im Jahre 1945, Der Zentralausschuss der SPD in Berlin im Jahre 1945. Loeding, Matthias, Otto Grotewohl kontra Kurt Schumacher, die Wennigsener Konferenz im Oktober 1945. Loeding, Matthias, Wie Phönix aus der Asche, Zur Rolle Otto Grotewohls bei der Gründung des Zentralausschusses der SPD in Berlin im Frühjahr/Sommer 1945

21.
People's Chamber
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The Peoples Chamber was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic. Despite the appearance of a multi-party system, all these Bloc parties were completely subservient to the SED, in addition, seats were also allocated to various mass organizations affiliated with the SED, such as the Free German Youth. Initially, it was the house of a bicameral legislature. The upper chamber was the Chamber of States, or Länderkammer, but in 1952 the states of East Germany were dissolved, in theory, the Volkskammer was the highest organ of state power in the GDR. Both GDR constitutions vested it with great lawmaking powers and it also formally appointed the Council of State, the Council of Ministers, and the National Defence Council. All other branches of government—including the judiciary—were theoretically responsible to it, in practice, like most other legislatures in Communist countries, the Peoples Chamber did little more than rubber-stamp decisions already made by the SED and its Politburo. All parties were expected to respect the principles of democratic centralism, as a result, all but two measures put before it before the Peaceful Revolution passed unanimously. A1972 vote on liberalising abortion laws saw 14 CDU representatives vote nay and eight abstain, during Peoples Chamber elections, voters were presented with a single list from the National Front, with seats allocated based on a set quota rather than actual vote totals. By ensuring that its candidates dominated the list, the SED effectively predetermined the composition of the legislature, the democratic centralist principle extended to the ballot box as well. A voter simply took the paper, which contained only one name. A voter could vote against the candidate by crossing out his or her name, the consequences for such an act of defiance were severe—loss of ones job or expulsion from school, and close surveillance by the Stasi. The table below shows an overview of the results of all parliamentary elections before 1990. ¹Eastern Bureau of the Social Democratic Party of Germany In 1976, the Volkskammer moved into a building on Marx-Engels-Platz. On paper, the president of the Peoples Chamber was the third-highest post in the GDR and was vice president of the country. The last president of the Peoples Chamber, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, was interim head of state during the last six months of East Germanys existence due to the State Council having been abolished. Presidium of the Peoples Chamber Show election A Successful Policy Seared to the Needs of the People Deliberations of the Volkskammer on nuclear disarmament,1981

22.
Chamber of States
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The Chamber of States itself was abolished on 8 December 1958. The other chamber, which continued in existence until German reunification in 1990, was the Peoples Chamber, in the Federal Republic of Germany the expression Länderkammer is sometimes used to denote the Bundesrat although it is not considered to be a parliament chamber. After 1945, the Soviet military administration established the five Länder of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, initially, in 1949, the communists aimed for a quasi-unitary state, with some degree of decentralisation. Laws were to be made by the legislature in East Berlin. In practice, due to the centralism of the SED. However, it operated in this bicameral framework in which the states were represented. The Chamber of States theoretically had the power to introduce bills and to veto laws proposed by the Peoples Chamber, the Chamber of States never made use of its veto. According to the Constitution of East Germany, in addition to the Peoples Chamber, the fifty members of the Land Chamber were to be determined by the assemblies in the various Länder, according to the memberships of these assemblies. Saxony sent 13 delegates, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia 10 each, Brandenburg nine, East Berlin sent 13 delegates, but they did not have voting rights owing to Berlin as a whole still legally being occupied territory. In 1952, the East German Länder were abolished, the Chamber of States remained in existence, but became increasingly redundant. Since the Landtage could no longer meet to elect members of the Chamber of States, the members of the Chamber of States elected in 1958 were directly elected by their Bezirkstage. These delegates were appointed as a squad, raising no objection as the Peoples Chamber abolished the Chamber of States on 8 December 1958. Administrative divisions of the German Democratic Republic Politics of East Germany Law on the composition of the house of the German Democratic Republic

23.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare

24.
Constitution of East Germany
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The German Democratic Republic was founded in 1949 and was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990. Its original constitution was promulgated on 7 October 1949 and it was heavily based on the Weimarer Reichsverfassung, such that the GDR would be a federal and democratic republic. Because the original version did not accurately reflect the political climate of the GDR. The first constitution of the GDR was proclaimed on 7 October 1949, the 1949 constitution was intended for a united Germany and may have been written before the Soviet Union had irrevocably decided to establish a separate socialist republic in its zone of occupation. The constitution both resembled and differed from Western parliamentary democracies in various respects, with regard to state organization, the 1949 constitution resembled, at least superficially, the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The president of the GDR, like his Western counterpart, had a limited role and was removable by a joint two-thirds majority vote in both houses. Lawmaking was essentially the job of the Volkskammer rather than the Länderkammer, the Volkskammer was constitutionally defined as the highest organ of state power. Article 51 stated that the members of the Volkskammer were to be elected in universal, equal, another important difference concerned the role of political parties in the government. According to Article 92, parties with at least 40 seats in the Volkskammer and it also ensured that if the SED was ever demoted to a minority position, its continued influence in the government would be safeguarded if it maintained a minimum of 40 seats. A set of human rights, including the right to strike and to emigrate retained features of a liberal Rechtsstaat. The 1949 constitution was a compromise, it could have served either as a basis for building a socialist society or as the basis for a democratic all-German republic, critics have pointed out that the absence of a genuinely independent constitutional judiciary rendered the document virtually meaningless, however. Several important amendments were made at the initiative of the SED in the eighteen years in which the constitution was in force, a 1952 decision replaced the five states with fifteen administrative districts that were tied more directly to the central government. This step effectively neutered the Länderkammer, and formed the basis for its dissolution by constitutional amendment in December 1958. These amendments delineated the features of the countrys new sovereignty and a military structure. The same constitutional amendment also acknowledged the role of the recently formed National Defense Council of the GDR in GDR defense policy, a new constitution was needed to conform with the Marxist–Leninist belief in the progression of history and the role of the working class led by the SED. The new constitution would reflect the role of the state as the partys main instrument in achieving the goal of a socialist. A commission in the Volkskammer was tasked in December 1967 to draft a new constitution, two months later the commission produced a document, which, after public debate, was submitted to a plebiscite on April 6,1968. Approved by a 94.5 percent margin, the new Constitution went into three days later on 9 April 1968

25.
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
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The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on 16 June 1953. It turned into an uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day. In Germany, the revolt is often called Peoples Uprising in East Germany, in remembrance of it,17 June became a national holiday of West Germany, prevailing until reunification. The uprising in East Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, in spite of the intervention of Soviet troops, the wave of strikes and protests was not easily brought under control. Even after 17 June there were demonstrations in more than 500 towns, in July 1952 the second party conference of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany took place in East Berlin. The party was acting on demands made by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and this meant for example the division of the five Länder into 14 regions plus East Berlin. This decision was made amid the background of the economic situation in the country. In the course of the militarisation pushed by Soviet authorities, direct and indirect military expenditures rose, together with reparation payments, this totalled over 20% of the budget. Electricity was turned off in factories and public buildings at the onset of every evening. The dramatic increase of emigration in the first half of 1953, already high since the establishment of the GDR, constituted a serious economic, another factor that contributed to an already complicated political situation was the high number of political prisoners in the GDR. Suppression of the illegal organisation Junge Gemeinde, wrongly perceived as the youth organisation of the Evangelical Church. Ecclesiastic recreation centres were closed and taken over by the FDJ, high school students who belonged to a church were often expelled by the school authorities, sometimes even shortly before school graduation. Within this complicated background, the decision to raise the work norms was perceived as a provocation and these changes were coming into force by 30 June 1953, Ulbrichts 60th birthday. The decision was taken on 13–14 May 1953, and the Council of Ministers approved it on 28 May, following Stalins death in March 1953 and the massive increase in emigration the new Soviet government decided to ease the policies Stalin had demanded. On 4 June 1953, the Soviet government, alarmed at reports of unrest, georgy Malenkov warned them that if policy direction were not corrected immediately, there would be a catastrophe. After intense discussion the East German party eased policies and publicly admitted that mistakes had been made, however, according to the historian of East Germany, Manfred Wilke, that admission may have had the unintended effect of inflaming public opinion rather than easing tensions. Their numbers quickly swelled and a strike and protests were called for the next day. Early on 17 June 40,000 protesters had gathered in East Berlin, many protests were held throughout East Germany with at least some work stoppages and protests in virtually all industrial centers and large cities in the country

26.
Berlin Crisis of 1961
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The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—the last to be attended by the Communist Party of China—was held in Moscow during the crisis. After the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, some of those living in the acquired areas of the Eastern Bloc aspired to independence. Between 1945 and 1950, over 15 million people emigrated from Soviet-occupied Eastern European countries to the West. Taking advantage of this route, the number of Eastern Europeans applying for asylum in West Germany was 197,000 in 1950,165,000 in 1951,182,000 in 1952 and 331,000 in 1953. By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement, restricting emigration, was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, up until 1953, the lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places. Consequently, the Inner German border between the two German states was closed, and a fence erected. When large numbers of East Germans then defected under the guise of visits, accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West. The Berlin sector border was essentially a loophole through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape, the 4.5 million East Germans that had left by 1961 totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals—engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers, in November 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev issued the Western powers an ultimatum to withdraw from Berlin within six months and make it a free, demilitarised city. In response, the United States, United Kingdom, and France clearly expressed their determination to remain in. With tensions mounting, the United States, United Kingdom and France formed a group with orders to plan for an eventual response to any aggression on West Berlin. The planning group was named LIVE OAK, and staff from the three countries prepared land and air plans to access to and from West Berlin. The Soviet Union withdrew its deadline in May 1959, and the ministers of the four countries spent three months meeting. Eisenhower and Khrushchev had a few together at the US presidential retreat Camp David. There was nothing more inadvisable in this situation, said Eisenhower, than to talk about ultimatums, Khrushchev responded that he did not understand how a peace treaty could be regarded by the American people as a threat to peace. Eisenhower admitted that the situation in Berlin was abnormal and that human affairs got very badly tangled at times, Khrushchev came away with the impression that a deal was possible over Berlin, and they agreed to continue the dialogue at a summit in Paris in May 1960. However, the Paris Summit that was to resolve the Berlin question was cancelled in the fallout from Gary Powerss failed U-2 spy flight on 1 May 1960

27.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

28.
Peaceful Revolution
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In addition to the Soviet Union’s shift in foreign policy – part of its glasnost and perestroika reforms hastened the destabilization of the SED and the success of the counter revolution. Through a change in leadership and a willingness to talk with opponents, however, due to the continued political instability and the threat of national bankruptcy, control of the situation increasingly lay with the West German government under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. After a sweeping election win for the “Alliance for Germany” coalition, upon becoming elected General Secretary of the Soviet Union in 1985, Gorbachev abolished the Soviet claim of leadership over the internal developments of the socialist brother lands. With his economic and sociopolitical reform program as well as his disarmament initiatives, as the weak outpost of the Iron Curtain, the GDR profited from both a unique economic relationship with the Soviet Union and a relatively stable supply situation. It was notably the only Warsaw Pact member to have numbers of Soviet troops permanently stationed on its territory. However, Gorbachevs reforms soured relations between the GDR leadership and the Soviet Union as the SED showed an increasingly clear dissociation from these policies, information about the new developments in the Soviet Union was also placed under stronger censorship. This provoked a wave of protests from those in the GDR population, at the turn of the year 1988/89 GDR leader Erich Honecker began speaking of socialism in the colours of the GDR to emphasize the countries differences in policy. Since the start of the 1970s, Honecker had led social policies built on such as wage and pension increases. In 1981 a reduction in Soviet oil deliveries at special rates brought the GDRs planned economy into difficulties, by the end of the 1980s GDR productivity in comparison to the FRG lay at only 30%. It was attempted at high cost to become a producer of micro electronics, even the official presentation in September 1988 of a 1-Megabit-Speicher that was firstly developed in the GDR, couldnt mask the slow speed of development in comparison with the West. Outdated production facilities and methods were not only inefficient but also caused environmental damage. There were barely any ecologically intact flowing waters and lakes, the means were lacking for more environmental protection. In some especially affected regions of Leipzig-Halle-Bitterfeld, loud speaker announcements were made to keep windows, the legal but counterproductive measures of environmental protection created further hostility toward the regime. As a consequence of the heated political mood, the planned local elections of May 1989 took on greater significance than usual. However, after falsified electoral results at some polling stations in 1986 had been noted by oppositional observers, such controls were now supposed to be systematically carried out in all regions. Since the previous summer, different groups – mostly religious in nature – had called on Christians in the GDR to actively intervene in the preparation of the election on 7 May 1989. In the face of rising unrest, the SED wanted as impressive an election result as possible, hence, all those who had applied to travel abroad, known opponents of the regime and those who had failed to vote in past elections were all removed from the electoral roll. By the same token, by mid-April 1989, more than 80,000 people declared their non-participation in the election, under the codename Symbol 89, the Stasi undertook measures to hinder non-participation

29.
German reunification
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The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies

30.
List of countries by population
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This is a list of countries and dependent territories by population. For instance, the United Kingdom is considered as a single entity while the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are considered separately, in addition, this list includes certain states with limited recognition not found in ISO 3166-1. The population figures do not reflect the practice of countries that report significantly different populations of citizens domestically, some countries, notably Thailand, do not report total population, exclusively counting citizens, for total populations an international agency must issue an estimate. Also given in percent is each countrys population compared to the population of the world, figures used in this chart are based on the most up to date estimate or projections by the national census authority where available, and are usually rounded off. Where updated national data are not available, figures are based on the projections for 2016 by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Because the compiled figures are not collected at the time in every country, or at the same level of accuracy. Furthermore, the addition of figures from all countries may not equal the world total, a handful of nations have not conducted a census in over 30 years, providing high error margin estimates only. Areas that form parts of sovereign states, such as the countries of the United Kingdom, are counted as part of the sovereign states concerned. Note, All dependent territories or constituent countries that are parts of states are shown in italics

31.
East German mark
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The East German mark commonly called the eastern mark, in East Germany only Mark, was the currency of the German Democratic Republic. Its ISO4217 currency code was DDM and it was divided into 100 Pfennig. On 18 June 1948 a currency reform was announced for the western zones, subsequently, on 20 June 1948, the Reichsmark and the Rentenmark were abolished in the western occupation zones and replaced with the Deutsche Mark issued by the Bank deutscher Länder. Because the Reichsmark was still legal tender in the Soviet occupation zone, the currency flooded into the east from the west and this caused sudden inflation, which caused privately held cash in the Soviet zone to become worthless overnight. Only such banknotes could be exchanged when the Deutsche Notenbank issued the new Deutsche Mark with the subsequent currency reform, the adhesive coupons had already been printed and, with logistic assistance by the Soviets, distributed among the district offices. First affixings of the coupons started immediately, already on 19 June 1948, on 23 June 1948, the official starting day of the action, a considerable store of primed banknotes was already available. This enabled to reduce waiting times and to accelerate the process by exchanging these notes for unprimed banknotes, on 24 July 1948, a completely new series of banknotes were issued. It maintained the official name Deutsche Mark von der Deutschen Notenbank until 1964, from 1964 to 1967, the East German mark was officially designated as the Mark der Deutschen Notenbank. With the constitutional amendments of 1968 and 1974, the leadership of East Germany moved away from the goal of a unified Germany. Of the GDR where earlier they would simply have said German, coins minted prior to the renaming, with the legend Deutsche Mark, continued to circulate for several years, but they were gradually replaced by the early 1980s by coins with the legend Mark. The East German mark was officially valued by the East German government at parity with the Deutsche Mark, however, because it was not readily convertible and the GDRs export profile was restricted, it was practically worthless outside East Germany. The few East Germans able to visit the West often found themselves having to rely on their West German relatives as a result, starting on 13 October 1980, Western visitors to the GDR were required to exchange a minimum of 25 Deutsche Mark for East German marks per day. Some exceptions were authorized, for example, tourists who booked hotel stays in the GDR that were paid in currency were exempted from the minimum exchange requirements. At other times, West Berliners, retirees, children, on the black market, the exchange rate was about 5 to 10 M to one DM. In the mid-1980s, one could easily visit foreign currency exchange offices in West Berlin, however, the GDR forbade the import or export of East German currency into or out of the GDR, and penalties for violation ranged from confiscation of smuggled currency to imprisonment. The East German mark could not be spent in Intershops to acquire Western consumer goods, as a result, the main purchasers of black market East German banknotes were Allied military personnel entering East Berlin, as they were exempt from East German customs inspection. Upon adoption of the deutsche Mark in East Germany on 1 July 1990, larger amounts of savings, company debts and housing loans were converted at a 2,1 rate whilst so-called speculative money, acquired shortly before unification, was converted at a rate of 3,1. Around 4,500 tonnes of East German coins were melted down at the Rackwitz metal works in 1990, in total,3,000 tonnes of banknotes, passbooks, and checks were stored there, having been brought by military convoy from the Staatsbank der DDR in Berlin

32.
Deutsche Mark
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The Deutsche Mark, abbreviated DM or D-Mark, was the official currency of West Germany and unified Germany until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, but not in German, it is called the Deutschmark. Mark coins and banknotes continued to be accepted as valid forms of payment in Germany until 28 February 2002. However, in 2012, it was estimated that as many as 13.2 billion marks were in circulation, with polls showing a narrow majority of Germans favouring the currencys restoration. The Deutsche Bundesbank has guaranteed that all German marks in form may be changed into euros indefinitely. Banknotes and coins can even be sent to the Bundesbank by mail, on 31 December 1998, the Council of the European Union fixed the irrevocable exchange rate, effective 1 January 1999, for German mark to euros as DM1.95583 = €1. One Deutsche Mark was divided into 100 Pfennig, a mark had been the currency of Germany since its original unification in 1871. Before that time, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16 2⁄3 grams of pure silver. Although the mark was based on rather than silver, a fixed exchange rate between the Vereinsthaler and the mark of 3 marks =1 Vereinsthaler was used for the conversion. The first mark, known as the Goldmark, was introduced in 1873, with the outbreak of World War I, the mark was taken off the gold standard. The currency thus became known as the Papiermark, especially as inflation, then hyperinflation occurred. The Papiermark was replaced by the Rentenmark from November 15,1923, due to the strains between the Allies each zone was governed independently as regards monetary matters. The US occupation policy was governed by the directive JCS1067, as a consequence a separate monetary reform in the U. S. zone was not possible. Each of the Allies printed its own occupation currency, the Deutsche Mark was officially introduced on Sunday, June 20,1948 by Ludwig Erhard. Large amounts were exchanged for RM10 to 65 Pfennig, in addition, each person received a per capita allowance of DM60 in two parts, the first being DM40 and the second DM20. A few weeks later Erhard, acting against orders, issued an edict abolishing many economic controls which had been implemented by the Nazis. He did this, as he confessed, on Sunday because the offices of the American, British. He was sure if he had done it when they were open

33.
List of country calling codes
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Country calling codes or country dial in codes are telephone dialing prefixes for the member countries of the International Telecommunication Union. They are defined by the ITU-T in standards E.123, the prefixes enable international direct dialing, and are also referred to as international subscriber dialing codes. Country codes are a component of the telephone numbering plan. Country codes are dialed before the telephone number. For example, the call prefix in all countries belonging to the North American Numbering Plan is 011. On GSM networks, the prefix may automatically be inserted when the user prefixes a dialed number with the plus sign, Country calling codes are prefix codes, hence, they can be organized as a tree. In each row of the table below, the country codes given in the left-most column share the same first digit, while there is a general geographic grouping to the zones, some exceptions exist for political and historical reasons. Thus, the geographical indicators below are approximations only, countries within NANP administered areas are assigned area codes as if they were all within one country. The codes below in format +1 XXX represent area code XXX within the +1 NANP zone – not a country code. Small countries, such as Iceland, were assigned three-digit codes, since the 1980s, all new assignments have been three-digit regardless of countries’ populations.164 assigned country codes as of 15 November 2016. List of ITU-T Recommendation E.164 Dialling Procedures as of 15 December 2011, complement to Recommendation ITU-T E.164 - List of Recommendation ITU-T E.164 Assigned Country Codes. Telephone and Internet Country Codes in 10 Languages

34.
Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty would result in the westward of Polands borders back to approximately as they were before 1722. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the boundaries for the future zones of occupation. The so-called line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border was temporary. After two months in which they had areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries, the Memel Territory, annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the American zone consisted of Bavaria and Hesse in Southern Germany, and the northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. The ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven were also placed under American control because of the American request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany, the headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. Beginning in May 1945, many of the American combat troops and airmen in, Army, the Army Air Forces, and the U. S. Navy upon their return home. The Canadian Army was tied down in surrounding the Netherlands until the Germans there surrendered on 5 May 1945 – just two days before the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe to U. S. Then in July 1945, the British Army withdrew from small slices of Germany that had previously agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army. Within the British Zone of Occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the German state of Hamburg, also in 1947, the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation located within the British Zone. In 1946, the Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers in Hanover, despite its being one of the Allied Powers, the French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany. This created a French zone of occupation in the westernmost part of Germany and it consisted of two barely contiguous areas of Germany along the French border that met at just a single point along the Rhine River. It included the Saargebiet, which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946, by 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar area and allied occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further adjacent municipalities to the Saar, included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law

35.
Soviet occupation zone
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The Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic, which became referred to as East Germany, was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The SBZ was one of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany created at the end of World War II, according to the Potsdam Agreement, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany was assigned responsibility for the eastern portion of Germany. After several months of occupation these gains by the British and Americans were ceded to the Soviets, by July 1945, the SMAD allowed four political parties to develop, though they were all required to work together under an alliance known as the Democratic Bloc. In April 1946, the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Communist Party of Germany merged to form the Socialist Unity Party, the SMAD set up ten special camps for the detention of Germans, making use of some former Nazi concentration camps. In 1945, the Soviet occupation zone consisted primarily of the portions of Prussia. After Prussia was dissolved by the Allied powers in 1947, the area was divided between the German states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. On 7 October 1949, the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, in 1952, the Länder were dissolved and realigned into 14 districts, plus the district of East Berlin. In 1952, with the Cold War political confrontation well underway, the Wests disinterest in this proposal helped to cement the Soviet Zones identity as the GDR for the next four decades

36.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed

37.
West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany

38.
Statistisches Bundesamt
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The Federal Statistical Office is a federal authority of Germany. It reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Office is responsible for collecting, processing, presenting and analysing statistical information concerning the topics economy, society and environment. The purpose is providing objective, independent and highly qualitative statistical information for the whole public, about 2780 staff members are employed in the departments in Wiesbaden, Bonn and Berlin. The department in Wiesbaden is the office and runs the largest library specialised in statistical literature in Germany. It is also the Office of the President who is also by tradition, but not by virtue of the office, in this position he or she is the supervisor of the elections of the German Parliament and of the European Parliament. Census in Germany List of statistical offices in Germany Official website of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany

39.
Communist state
–
A communist state is a state that is usually administered and governed by a single party representing the proletariat, guided by Marxist–Leninist philosophy, with the aim of achieving communism. The term Communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, Communist states can be administered by a single, centralised party apparatus, although countries such as the DPRK have several parties. These parties usually are Marxist–Leninist or some variation thereof, with the aim of achieving socialism. Marx saw that in his time, the new nation states were characterized by increasingly intensified class contradiction between the capitalist class and the working class it ruled over. The state ruled by the class during the transition into classless society is called the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vladimir Lenin created revolutionary vanguard theory in an attempt to expand on the concept, during the 20th century, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state was in Russia in 1917. In 1922, it joined other territories of the empire to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. After World War II, the Soviet Army occupied much of Eastern Europe, most Communist states in Eastern Europe were allied with the USSR, except for Yugoslavia which declared itself non-aligned. In 1949, after a war against Japanese occupation and a war resulting in a Communist victory. Communist states were established in Cuba, Vietnam, Laos. A Communist state was established in North Korea, although it withdrew from the Communist movement. In 1989, the Communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed under pressure during a wave of non-violent movements which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, the existing Communist states in the world are in China, Cuba, Laos, Communist states share similar institutions, which are organized on the premise that the Communist party is a vanguard of the proletariat and represents the long-term interests of the people. The doctrine of democratic centralism, which was developed by Vladimir Lenin as a set of principles to be used in the affairs of the communist party, is extended to society at large. When used within a party, democratic centralism is meant to prevent factionalism. When applied to a state, democratic centralism creates a one-party system. The constitutions of most socialist states describe their system as a form of democracy. Thus, they recognize the sovereignty of the people as embodied in a series of parliamentary institutions

40.
Central Europe
–
Central Europe lies between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. The concept of Central Europe is based on a historical, social and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of strategic awakening, with such as the CEI, Centrope. While the regions economy shows high disparities with regard to income, elements of unity for Western and Central Europe were Roman Catholicism and Latin. According to Hungarian historian Jenő Szűcs, foundations of Central European history at the first millennium were in connection with Western European development. The keyword of Western social development after millennium was the spread of liberties and autonomies in Western Europe and these phenomena appeared in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries. There were self-governments of towns, counties and parliaments, in 1335 under the rule of the King Charles I of Hungary, the castle of Visegrád, the seat of the Hungarian monarchs was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary. They agreed to cooperate closely in the field of politics and commerce, in the Middle Ages, countries in Central Europe adopted Magdeburg rights. Before 1870, the industrialization that had developed in Western and Central Europe, even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia, for example, remained rural and agricultural. The concept of Central Europe was already known at the beginning of the 19th century, an example of that-time vision of Central Europe may be seen in J. Partsch’s book of 1903. On 21 January 1904, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany, another time, the term Central Europe became connected to the German plans of political, economic and cultural domination. The bible of the concept was Friedrich Naumann’s book Mitteleuropa in which he called for a federation to be established after the war. The concept failed after the German defeat in World War I, the revival of the idea may be observed during the Hitler era. According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927 the Central European countries included, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, italy and Yugoslavia are not considered by the author to be Central European because they are located mostly outside Central Europe. The author use both Human and Physical Geographical features to define Central Europe, the interwar period brought new geopolitical system and economic and political problems, and the concept of Central Europe took a different character. The centre of interest was moved to its eastern part – the countries that have appeared on the map of Europe, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, however, the conflict of interests was too big and neither Little Entente nor Intermarium ideas succeeded. The interwar period brought new elements to the concept of Central Europe, after the war, the Eastern part of Central Europe was placed at the centre of the concept

41.
Soviet Occupation Zone
–
The Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic, which became referred to as East Germany, was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The SBZ was one of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany created at the end of World War II, according to the Potsdam Agreement, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany was assigned responsibility for the eastern portion of Germany. After several months of occupation these gains by the British and Americans were ceded to the Soviets, by July 1945, the SMAD allowed four political parties to develop, though they were all required to work together under an alliance known as the Democratic Bloc. In April 1946, the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Communist Party of Germany merged to form the Socialist Unity Party, the SMAD set up ten special camps for the detention of Germans, making use of some former Nazi concentration camps. In 1945, the Soviet occupation zone consisted primarily of the portions of Prussia. After Prussia was dissolved by the Allied powers in 1947, the area was divided between the German states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. On 7 October 1949, the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, in 1952, the Länder were dissolved and realigned into 14 districts, plus the district of East Berlin. In 1952, with the Cold War political confrontation well underway, the Wests disinterest in this proposal helped to cement the Soviet Zones identity as the GDR for the next four decades

Former eastern territories of Germany
–
The former eastern territories of Germany are those provinces or regions east of the current eastern border of Germany which were lost by Germany after World War I and then World War II. All territories lost in both World Wars account for 33% of the former German Empire, while land ceded by Germany after World War II constituted roughly 25% of its

1.
Oder-Neisse line at Usedom

2.
German territories lost in both World Wars are shown in black, present-day Germany is marked dark grey on this 1914 map.

3.
Polish atlas showing ethnic groups in 1918.

4.
Marking the new Polish-German border in 1945.

New states of Germany
–
The new states, which had been abolished by the East German government in 1952 and were re-established in 1990, are Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The state of Berlin, the result of a merger between East and West Berlin, is not considered one of the new states, although many of its residents are former Eas

1.
The Ampelmännchen, symbol of the East German culture

2.
Mecklenburg- Vorpommern

3.
DDR-era apartment blocks in Ilmenau, Thuringia

East Germanic languages
–
The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Germanic languages of the Indo-European language family spoken by East Germanic peoples. Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century, by the 1st century AD, the writings of Pomponius Mela, Pliny the elder, and Tacitus indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into larg

1.
North Germanic

German language
–
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other member

1.
Old Frisian (Alt-Friesisch)

2.
The widespread popularity of the Bible translated into German by Martin Luther helped establish modern German

3.
Examples of German language in Namibian everyday life

4.
German-language newspapers in the U.S. in 1922

Warsaw Pact
–
The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both N

1.
Logo Military unit Organization The Warsaw Pact. Union of peace and socialism

2.
Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance

3.
Soviet philatelic commemoration: At its 20th anniversary in 1975, the Warsaw Pact remains On Guard for Peace and Socialism.

4.
Warsaw Pact "Big Seven" threats

Flag of East Germany
–
The flag of East Germany was the official national flag of the East German state from 1949 to 1990. The flags design and symbolism are derived from the flag of the Weimar Republic, meanwhile, the eastern Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany. During the preparation of the new constitution for West Germany

1.
German Democratic Republic

National Emblem of East Germany
–
The national emblem of the German Democratic Republic featured a hammer and a compass, surrounded by a ring of rye. It was an example of what has been called socialist heraldry, the hammer represented the workers in the factories. The compass represented the intelligentsia, and the ring of rye the farmers, the first designs included only the hammer

1.
Official gazetted version published in the Gesetzblatt der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 27 October 1955

2.
National Emblem of the German Democratic Republic

Workers of the world, unite!
–
Five years before the Communist Manifesto, the phrase appeared in the 1843 book The Workers Union by Flora Tristan. It reflected Marxs and Engels view of proletarian internationalism, first that workers should unite in unions to better push for their demands such as workplace pay and conditions. Secondly, that workers should see beyond their variou

2.
The Coat of arms of the Soviet Union had the slogan emblazoned on the ribbons in 15 languages spoken in the republics.

Auferstanden aus Ruinen
–
Auferstanden aus Ruinen was the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany, during its existence from 1949 to 1990. In 1949, the Soviet occupation zone of Allied-occupied Germany became a Socialist state called the German Democratic Republic, for its anthem, the poet Johannes R. Becher, who later became Minist

1.
Sheet music of the National anthem of the GDR.

East Berlin
–
East Berlin existed between 1949 and 1990 and consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors became West Berlin, strongly associated with West Germany, from 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. In East German official usage, it w

1.
Marx-Engels-Platz and the Palast der Republik in East Berlin in the summer of 1989. The Fernsehturm (TV Tower) is visible in the background

2.
Flag

3.
Easter Sunday 1988 Fernsehturm and Palast der Republik

4.
Karl Marx Allee apartments

One-party state
–
All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections. One-party states explain themselves through various methods, most often, proponents of a one-party state argue that the existence of separate parties runs counter to national unity. Others argue that the one party is the vanguard of th

1.
Presidential republics with a semi-presidential system.

Socialist state
–
A socialist state or socialist republic refers to any state that is constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. Aside from the Communist states, a number of states have described their orientation as socialist in their constitutions. In such cases, the system and machinery of government is not specifically structured to pursue the

1.
Symbolics on the banknotes of socialist states (V.I. Lenin in the Soviet note and "a worker with a female co-operative farmer" on the Czechoslovak one).

Republic
–
It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval

1.
Vaishali was the capital of the Vajjian Confederacy, an early republic.

2.
A map of the Roman Republic

3.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Neptune offers the wealth of the sea to Venice, 1748–50. This painting is an allegory of the power of the Republic of Venice.

4.
Beginning of the Republic of Metz. Election of the first Head-Alderman in 1289, by Auguste Migette. Metz was then a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Emperor.

Unitary state
–
The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states,165 of them are governed as unitary states, unitary states are contrasted with federal states. In a unitary state, sub-national units are created and abolished, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an example of a unitary stat

Wilhelm Pieck
–
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic and his successor as head of state was Walter Ulbricht, who served as chairman of the Council of State. Pieck was born the son of a coachman in the part of Guben, Germany. While he initially trained to bec

1.
Wilhelm Pieck

2.
Pieck in 1926

3.
Pieck (left) and Otto Grotewohl in 1949

4.
1951 East German commemorative stamp of the Treaty of Zgorzelec establishing the Oder-Neisse line as a “border of peace”, with Pieck and President Bolesław Bierut of Poland

Egon Krenz
–
Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz is a former East German politician who was the last communist leader of East Germany during the final months of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany, throughout his career, Krenz held a number of prominent positions in the SED. He was Honeckers deputy from 19

1.
Egon Krenz

2.
Egon Krenz (left) officially congratulating Erich Mielke on behalf of the government on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Stasi in 1985

3.
Egon Krenz addressing the Volkskammer.

4.
Miep Gies and Egon Krenz in 1989

Heads of State of East Germany
–
The political leadership of East Germany was in the hands of several offices. Prior the proclamation of an East German state, the Soviets established in 1948 the German Economic Commission as a de facto government in their occupation zone. On 7 October 1949 an East German state, called the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed, for most of its

1.
Egon Krenz

2.
State Coat of arms

Sabine Bergmann-Pohl
–
Sabine Bergmann-Pohl is a German doctor and politician. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, she was president of the Peoples Chamber of East Germany from April to October 1990, as such, she served as acting head of state of East Germany until its merger into West Germany in October. After the reunification of Germany, she served

1.
Sabine Bergmann-Pohl in 1990

2.
Meeting of the Volkskammer, 2 Oct 1990.

Heads of Government of East Germany
–
The political leadership of East Germany was in the hands of several offices. Prior the proclamation of an East German state, the Soviets established in 1948 the German Economic Commission as a de facto government in their occupation zone. On 7 October 1949 an East German state, called the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed, for most of its

1.
Egon Krenz

2.
State Coat of arms

Otto Grotewohl
–
Otto Grotewohl was a German politician and the first prime minister of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 until his death in 1964. Grotewohl was born in the city of Braunschweig on 11 March 1894, following World War I started his political career as a leader of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and minister in the Free State

1.
Otto Grotewohl

2.
21 April 1946: Pieck (left) and Grotewohl sealing the unification, Ulbricht in the foreground

3.
Otto Grotewohl stamp, 1974

4.
His tomb in Berlin

People's Chamber
–
The Peoples Chamber was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic. Despite the appearance of a multi-party system, all these Bloc parties were completely subservient to the SED, in addition, seats were also allocated to various mass organizations affiliated with the SED, such as the Free German Youth. Initially, it was the house

2.
People's Chamber Volkskammer

3.
Protestor, January 1990

4.
Ballot for the 1990 elections (written text reads "Sample")

Chamber of States
–
The Chamber of States itself was abolished on 8 December 1958. The other chamber, which continued in existence until German reunification in 1990, was the Peoples Chamber, in the Federal Republic of Germany the expression Länderkammer is sometimes used to denote the Bundesrat although it is not considered to be a parliament chamber. After 1945, the

1.
A Session of the Länderkammer in 1958. The Minister of the Interior Karl Maron is speaking.

2.
Chamber of States Länderkammer

Cold War
–
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there w

1.
Photograph of the Berlin Wall taken from the West side. The Wall was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing and to stop an economically disastrous drain of workers. It was a symbol of the Cold War and its fall in 1989 marked the approaching end of the war.

2.
Allied troops in Vladivostok, August 1918, during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

Constitution of East Germany
–
The German Democratic Republic was founded in 1949 and was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990. Its original constitution was promulgated on 7 October 1949 and it was heavily based on the Weimarer Reichsverfassung, such that the GDR would be a federal and democratic republic. Because the original version did not accurate

1.
Ulbricht signing the new constitution, 8 April 1968

2.
Draft of the East German constitution, March 1949

3.
1974 amendement, signed by Willi Stoph

Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
–
The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on 16 June 1953. It turned into an uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day. In Germany, the revolt is often called Peoples Uprising in East Germany, in remembrance of it,17 June became a national holiday of West Germany, pr

1.
A Soviet IS-2 tank in Leipzig on 17 June 1953

2.
A Soviet T-34/85 tank in Berlin, 17 June 1953.

3.
West Berlin stamp (1953)

Berlin Crisis of 1961
–
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—the last to be attended by the Communist Party of China—was held in Moscow during the crisis

1.
East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall in 1961

2.
American tanks face an East German water cannon at Checkpoint Charlie.

3.
Main article

United Nations
–
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the

1.
1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the United Nations' original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states.

2.
Flag

3.
The Chilean delegation signing the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945

4.
Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

Peaceful Revolution
–
In addition to the Soviet Union’s shift in foreign policy – part of its glasnost and perestroika reforms hastened the destabilization of the SED and the success of the counter revolution. Through a change in leadership and a willingness to talk with opponents, however, due to the continued political instability and the threat of national bankruptcy

1.
A demonstration on 30 October 1989 in front of Plauen 's town hall

German reunification
–
The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caus

1.
Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989

2.
Map showing the division of East and West Germany until 1990, with West Berlin in yellow.

3.
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, national symbol of today's Germany and its reunification in 1990.

4.
Police officers of the East German Volkspolizei wait for the official opening of the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December 1989.

List of countries by population
–
This is a list of countries and dependent territories by population. For instance, the United Kingdom is considered as a single entity while the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are considered separately, in addition, this list includes certain states with limited recognition not found in ISO 3166-1. The population figures do

1.
A map of world population in 2014

East German mark
–
The East German mark commonly called the eastern mark, in East Germany only Mark, was the currency of the German Democratic Republic. Its ISO4217 currency code was DDM and it was divided into 100 Pfennig. On 18 June 1948 a currency reform was announced for the western zones, subsequently, on 20 June 1948, the Reichsmark and the Rentenmark were abol

1.
1 mark coin

3.
10 Mark coin featuring military hardware (NVA)

4.
10 Mark DDR, 1986

Deutsche Mark
–
The Deutsche Mark, abbreviated DM or D-Mark, was the official currency of West Germany and unified Germany until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, but not in German, it is called the Deutschmark. Mark coins and banknotes continued to be accepted as valid forms of payment in Germany until 28 February 2002. However, in 2012, it was estima

List of country calling codes
–
Country calling codes or country dial in codes are telephone dialing prefixes for the member countries of the International Telecommunication Union. They are defined by the ITU-T in standards E.123, the prefixes enable international direct dialing, and are also referred to as international subscriber dialing codes. Country codes are a component of

1.
Worldwide distribution of country calling codes colored by first digit

Allied-occupied Germany
–
The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty

1.
The Allied zones of occupation in post-war Germany, highlighting the Soviet zone (red), the inner German border (black line), and the zone from which American troops withdrew in July 1945 (purple). The provincial boundaries correspond largely to those of the pre-war states, before the creation of the present Länder (federal states).

2.
The C-Pennant

3.
Road sign delimiting the British sector of occupation in Berlin, 1984

4.
Flag used by ships registered in the British zone.

Soviet occupation zone
–
The Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic, which became referred to as East Germany, was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The SBZ was one of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany created at the end

Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular

1.
The Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.

2.
Flag

3.
Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the Protestant Reformation.

4.
Foundation of the German Empire in Versailles, 1871. Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.

West Germany
–
West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separa

1.
Konrad Adenauer in parliament, 1955

2.
Flag

3.
Rudi Dutschke, student leader.

4.
The Volkswagen Beetle – for many years the most successful car in the world – on the assembly line in Wolfsburg factory, 1973.

Statistisches Bundesamt
–
The Federal Statistical Office is a federal authority of Germany. It reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Office is responsible for collecting, processing, presenting and analysing statistical information concerning the topics economy, society and environment. The purpose is providing objective, independent and highly qualitative st

1.
Building of the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden

Communist state
–
A communist state is a state that is usually administered and governed by a single party representing the proletariat, guided by Marxist–Leninist philosophy, with the aim of achieving communism. The term Communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, Communist states can be administered by a single, centralised party apparatus

1.
Map of countries that declared themselves to be socialist states under the Marxist–Leninist or Maoist definition—that is to say, "Communist states"—between 1979 and 1983. This period marked the greatest territorial extent of Communist states.

Central Europe
–
Central Europe lies between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. The concept of Central Europe is based on a historical, social and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of strategic awakening, with such as the CEI, Centrope. While the regions economy shows high disparities with regard to income, elements of unity for Western and

1.
Certain and disputed borders of Great Moravia under Svatopluk I (AD 870–894)

2.
Central Europe according to The World Factbook (2009), Encyclopædia Britannica, and Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (1998)

1.
Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad

2.
The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

3.
Adolf Hitler at a German National Socialist political rally in Weimar, October 1930

4.
Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War

Soviet Occupation Zone
–
The Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic, which became referred to as East Germany, was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The SBZ was one of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany created at the end

2.
The Allied zones of occupation in post-war Germany, highlighting the Soviet zone (red), the inner German border (heavy black line) and the zone from which British and American troops withdrew in July 1945 (purple). The provincial boundaries are those of Nazi Germany, before the present Länder (federal states) were established.

1.
A group of 105mm artillery shells with plastic explosive stuffed into their fuze pockets. Each of the 5 shells has been linked together with red detcord to make them detonate simultaneously. To turn this assembly into a booby trap, the final step would be to connect an M142 firing device to the detcord and hide everything under some form of cover e.g. newspapers or a bed-sheet.

2.
The middle Elbe in the North German Plain near the village of Gorleben. In this section, the river had been part of the Iron Curtain between West and East Germany during the Cold War. For that reason, the riverbanks even today look relatively natural and undeveloped.

1.
Armenians crowding around the building in Yerevan where the 1920 plenum officially declared Armenia a Soviet republic

2.
Flag

3.
First Secretary of the Armenian Communist Party Aghasi Khanjian, a native of Van and a devoted communist, is widely believed to have been executed in 1936 by Lavrentiy Beria.

4.
Tankers and mechanized infantry from the 119th "Sasuntsi-Davit" Tank Regiment, a unit composed primarily of Soviet Armenians, stand next to their T-34/85 tanks. The name of the regiment can be seen inscribed in the Armenian script on the turrets of the tanks.